Re: [syndication] Comments and questions

[Morbus Iff <morbus@disobey.com>]

>- The 0.94 spec re-written in the style of the early RFCs, like rfc822
>for instance. These are models of clear, concise, accurate text that
>would be worth emulating.

Agreed, but I worry that this may start confusing the "simple" of the 
"really simple syndication". I *do* want an RFC like spec, but I'd also 
want a dumbed down "hyuck" version that just shows people how to create a 
file (as opposed to instructs what a parser MUST and SHOULD do). This 
"hyuck" version could be helped along immensely by

 > - Some commentary on common usage.

and

 >- A more complete sample and sample snippets
 >  that illustrate the use of every element.

>- A deliberate effort to remove all ambiguity. There are a number of
>  places in the proposed spec where language is used that is very open to
>  interpretation. For instance, my favourite; "<link> is the URL of the
>  story." in the <item> description.

Agreed. I'd be willing to work with Winer on this clarity -
I'm super anal about wording and linguistic misrepresentation.

>- Notes on elements that are deprecated even
>  though they are left in for compatibility.

Agreed.

>- The removal of the restriction on using link types other than http and
>  ftp. In particular, I can't see any good reason for banning https and I
>  can think of (fairly bizarre!) applications where news and mailto would
>  be handy.

Agreed. Didn't know this one existed. This should work in favor of the 
whole "RSS in different architectures", as Winer's earlier mentions of TTL 
and Gnutella suggests he wants to go.

>- A <category> tag on channel that is similar to <item><category>

I'm not a fan of categories myself, so I'll stay away from this one.

>- A DTD and a set of recommendations of how to reference the DTD that
>  can handle foreign character sets without breaking validating parsers.

Agreed.

>- A note deprecating the use of entity-encoded html in any element
>  except <item><description>

Hallelujah!

>- The removal of the copyright notice. I cannot think of any good reason
>  for a corporate copyright disclaimer on a standards specification.

There's a cop... oh, lord in heaven. Sigh.


--
Morbus Iff ( i'm the droid you're looking for )
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