How does XML limit "the range of implementation decisions that must be automatically made"?

Hi Folks,

A book [1] that I am reading says something interesting about declarative languages (such as XML):

Programming a scanner generator is an example of nonprocedural programming [i.e., declarative programming]. That is, unlike ordinary programming, which we call procedural, we do not tell a scanner generator "how" to scan but simply "what" we want scanned. This is a higher-level approach and in many ways a more natural one. ... Nonprocedural programming is most successful in limited domains, such as scanning, where the range of implementation decisions that must be automatically made is limited.

That last sentence is interesting. I wonder how it applies to XML? XML is in a limited domain, right? XML's domain is the data formats domain, right? How is "the range of implementation decisions that must be automatically made" limited in XML?

/Roger

[1] "Crafting a Compiler with C" by Fischer and LeBlanc, p. 52

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