I often find this strange CDATA tag in XML files:

<![CDATA[some stuff]]>

I have observed that this CDATA tag always comes at the beginning, and then followed by some stuff.

But sometimes it is used, sometimes it is not. I assume it is to mark that some stuff is the "data" that will be inserted after that. But what kind of data is some stuff? Isn't anything I write in XML tags some sort of data?