Re: [syndication] Re: locating syndication feeds

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 12:05:04AM -0500, Aaron Swartz wrote:
> 
> Oh, you're still hung up on dispatching?

Yep, I'm "still hung up"...


> I think that's the wrong way to go -- it requires MIME types and 
> installed software, etc., etc.

This is the way that Web software works; MIME is used for dispatch.


> The future is in bookmarklets. They work for client-side software
> as well as server-side. You just write a little bookmarklet that
> redirects you (or opens a new window) to a "Add this feed" page
> passed with the URL of the page the user was previously looking at.
> The "add this feed" page can easily scan the site for a rel
> attribute.

This would certainly be one way to do it, but it won't work across
all browser and platform combinations; not only are there things like
lynx, etc. but also Javascript cross-browser compatibility is notably
difficult, especially for bookmarklets (I've written a few myself).

Why not a MIME type AND a <LINK> that can be used in this way? Best
of both worlds...


-- 
Mark Nottingham
http://www.mnot.net/