text_combined: diveintomark rssfeedsspamassassintaintorg url httpdiveintomarkorgarchives20021008htmlin_praise_of_evolvable_formats date 20021008t1228100500 _clay shirky_ praise evolvable systems1 entire article could rewritten explain rss fact lets april fools day nets official holiday wanted design 8220novelty format8221 slip w3c joke might look something like rss 09x20 would specify limits data values remove specify required elements make optional thus silently breaking unknown number parsers around world would encourage use entityencoded html important element thus ensuring security risks unpredictable display end user would ignore years standards work fields committing egregious sins defining guid element wasnt guid using obsolete date format couldnt easily sorted date primary method extensibility would add new elements core namespace without telling anyone documenting thus making wholely resistant dtd schema validation kind years worldwide deployment would completely reverse addwhateveryouwant extensibility rules favor namespaces spec would neither define elaborate adopting namespaces would fail deprecate existing elements semantically identical namespace elements already wide use would also fail provide precedence rules cases document attempted say thing two different ways thus ensuring mass confusion among producers inconsistent behavior across consumers rss 09x 20 whoopee cushion joy buzzer syndication formats anyone tried accomplish anything serious metadata pretty obvious various implementations worldwide syndication format worst one possible except course others problem list rss deficiencies also list necessities8212rss flourished way syndication format despite many qualities weaknesses make rss infuriating serious practitioners also make possible first place removing length limitations description making title optional opened rss whole new category producer weblogger allowing encoded html description let publishers reuse existing content existing rss infrastructure without requiring produce valid xhtml could embedded directly xml document social mores rather technical rules prevent producers intentionally introducing security risks malicious script tags unpredictable display unclosed html elements publishing tools produce real conforming guids doesnt matter virtually rss parsers written high level languages handling strings efficient converting strings bytecodes handling bytecodes dates convention rss document laid reverse chronological order one seems clamoring flexibility furthermore almost babyish xml syntax far serious computational framework namespaces document type description aggregators enforcement conformity lax made possible anyone wanting rss feed write one effects ease implementation become clear compare attempts years 8220do rss right82218212most notably rss 10 year 2000 rss 10 three main benefits backward compatible rss 090 never widely deployed fell obscurity soon much simpler rss 091 introduced based rdf specifically serialization called rdfxml spec time day continues change threaten change two years later major languages development platforms ship parsers consume rdf although many perl python net thirdparty rdf parsers various states development conformance release version generally date cvs access recommended get idea meanwhile rdfxml production tools inconsistent even rdf experts recommend using rdf tools produce rss 10 feed want actually read major rss aggregator despite twoyearold promise better tools2 year 2002 built rss 10 feed8212in sophisticated personal publishing system world8212by manually typing mishmash template tags angle brackets textarea html form extensible namespaces mentioned haphazardly poorly incorporated rss 20 appear flourishing evolvable formats8212those proceed adapted extended thousand small ways8212have three main characteristics germane eventual victories strong centrally designed formats solutions produce partial results imperfect tools succeed rss feed xml document produced template built textarea consumed hundreds parsers around world know nothing xml hack apart feed regular expressions world littered formats would worked everyone better tools everyone world perfect rdf parser disposal would trivial produce consume worlds metadata rdf without perfect tools production consumption instantly become nightmares middle ground wrong evolvable formats always adapted earlier conditions always adapted present conditions always behind times rss stretched long descriptions optional titles entityencoded html even practices codified spec long consumers could handle evolving format ever perfectly sync challenges faces finally orgels rule named evolutionary biologist leslie orgel82128220evolution cleverer are8221 list rsss obvious deficiencies easy point wrong evolvable system point life one seeing rss 10 rss 091 sidebyside could doubt rss 10 superior technology 8220did things right8221 however ability understand missing given moment mean one person small central group design better system long haul designed formats start strong improve logarithmically evolvable formats start weak improve exponentially rss 20 perfect syndication format best one thats also currently practical infrastructure built evolvable formats always partially incomplete partially wrong ultimately better designed competition 1 httpwwwshirkycomwritingsevolvehtml 2 httpgroupsyahoocomgroupsyndicationmessage467 wed 09 oct 2002 080015 0000 praise evolvable formats