To add extra 0.02$...
Attributes can be prefered over elements for compactness reasons:
<element someName=�123�/>
is more compact than
<element>
<someName>123</someName>
</element>
and if you have thousands of elements...
SVG designers ever went further and introduced this ugly syntax:
<path d="M 100 100 L 140 100 L 120 140 z"/>
- for the very compactness reason.
�A verbose XML syntax not only increases the size of a file, but also imposes additional memory overheads when constructing a DOM tree.�
(
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/03/15/deviant/index.html)