Re: A message to the lurkers on the list

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Paulo Gaspar <Paulo.Gaspar@krankikom.de> wrote:

> My "backwards compatibility" is that they just look the same when you
> want to do the same.

This is difficult, and, IMO, of little use. Even RSS 0.9 -> RSS 0.91 were
not backwards compatible, by this or any other definition I've heard of. If
your syntax always must remain the same, then how can you possibly change?

> What about the namespaces? Are they avoided now for basic stuff?
> (Many basic parsers would be messed up by namespaces.)

No, having namespaces appear and disappear depending on the complexity of
the RSS file would make things difficult for parsers, not easier. If a
parser wants to support RSS 0.91, (which does not use namespaces), it can go
right ahead and do that. If it wants to support 1.0p (which does) it can do
that too. However, there is no point in requiring 1.0p parsers to support
0.91 syntax, as you seem to imply. I'd much rather leave the choice up to
the person writing the application.

-- 
Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com