title: Why are Nodes and Elements different in XML? What was the rationale?
body: <p>Having been writing code that operates on XML for a while, I have always wondered what is the reason for having both Nodes and Elements? (We know <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/132564/whats-the-difference-between-an-element-and-a-node-in-xml">what the differences are</a>). Both of them represent tags (more or less) and having different methods, just makes the code complicated.</p>
  
  <p>Are there any special semantics or practical reasons, or is it just the fact that the DOM spec was committee generated?</p>