My 5 Cents (CAD) Worth on the RSS/Atom Debate
Tim Marman posted the entry that finally drew my 5 cent comment that's been brewing ever since the controversy on RSS vs. Echo (now Atom) started. It seems like the people arguing are forgetting the value proposition of XML. They are thinking with the mindset of difficult to decipher and implement standards of ancient history (i.e. 5 years ago).
The whole point of XML is that it makes it relatively trivial to implement, consume, and translate content. Clemens Vasters pointed out that he had an Atom feed created in fewer than 2 hours. This seems to be the common refrain -- trivial implementation time. There are already several RSS converters that make it very easy to convert any feed. I would be worried if switching formats, or providing alternate formats required significant effort, but it's stinking XML, and really, really simple XML at that.
Am I missing something deeper? This doesn't seem like rocket science.
Anyway, the dust seems to be settling. Half the reason I've been so quiet on my blog through July has been that I was starting to really get disgusted with the blogging world because of the crap that was flying.
Comments
Is being the one that drew the 5 cent comment a good thing or a bad thing? :)
Posted by: Tim Marman | July 18, 2003 10:14 PM
Depends on whether anyone really wants to hear more on the debate. :) Your comment pretty much aligned with my thoughts on the whole issue, but I haven't really heard anyone else say it.
Posted by: Steve Clarke | July 18, 2003 10:54 PM
Oh ok :)
Posted by: Tim Marman | July 18, 2003 11:05 PM