Re: [syndication] Blogger's Atom format(s)??

["Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>]

Phil, I'm aware of the theoretical variability allowed by the format.

Let's put it another way. Perhaps some developers who claim Atom support can
explain how they support Blogger users?

Hopefully that's not considered a proprietary advantage.

Dave


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Ringnalda" <philringnalda@gmail.com>
To: <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [syndication] Blogger's Atom format(s)??


> On Mon, 17 May 2004 08:22:59 -0400, Dave Winer <dave@userland.com> wrote:
> > I'm seeing a fair amount of variety in how
> > entry-level content is expressed.
> >
> > Some feeds have summary's, others have content.
> >
> > Some content is embedded in a div, others without
> > the div.
>
> Look at it one way, and there are a whole bunch of content elements.
> An entry can have a summary element, a content element, or both (or
> multiple content elements of different types). For either sort of
> element, it might have any MIME type, though for an entry level
> aggregator you'll probably only be looking for ones that are
> text/plain, text/html, and application/xhtml+xml. Then, the mode might
> be escaped or (the default) xml, or Ghu forbid, base64.
>
> Look at it the way that's worked best for me so far, parse XML to an
> intermediate data structure, and then pick the parts out of that that
> I really want, and you just have "what do I do to it?", "what's it
> going to be?" and "how much of it?". If the mode is escaped, then your
> XML parser (well, maybe not yours, but mine) will have unescaped it
> already, and what you get is in the MIME type it says. If the mode is
> XML (or there isn't a mode attribute), then the inline XML is already
> that type, and you either don't do any unescaping, or if your parser
> will have already unescaped and handed you separate elements and
> content, you stitch it back together to get that type (they tell me
> that makes life wonderful for people using things like XPath, and I
> hope some day they'll actually show me rather than tell me). If it's
> base64, you undecode it and have the MIME type it claims. Then, if the
> type isn't what suits you (they gave you text, you want HTML), convert
> it to what you want (run it through your autoparagraphing routine),
> and use whichever quantity, summary or content, suits your needs.
>
> You want as much content as you can get, in HTML? Look for a content
> element, if there isn't one settle for summary. If it's escaped,
> unescape it, if not just grab it. If it's text/plain, autoparagraph
> it, if it's text/html throw it in your source as-is after stripping
> dangerous stuff, if it's application/xhtml+xml, maybe strip off the
> namespace declaration on the outer element and do the same.
>
> > If we're all going to have to parse Atom, as it
> > seems we will, wouldn't it make sense to try to get it to be one format,
not
> > multiple formats?
>
> My outsider's take on the format is that it's a producer's format, and
> an end-consumer's format, more than an aggregator author's format. If
> you have plain text you want to stick in a feed, you can do that. If
> you have well-formed XHTML, you can do that, and what should come out
> the other end of the pipe is however that can best be presented on
> whatever you are using, cellphone, teletype, or Mozilla. In either
> case, the only munging up it's going to get will be the aggregator
> author's fault ;)
>
>
> > Also, I'm making some judgement calls, for
> > example, about which date is the pub date. Are there any guidelines?
Should
> > the creation date be considered the pub date? Or the modification date?
Is there
> > the concept of a publication date? If not, why not?
>
> I've never been quite sure what publication date really is, other than
> for the New York Times. But, in theory there will always be an issued
> and a modified, and issued is pretty much pubDate.
>
> > Is there a list of design goals for Atom somewhere?
> > Is kindness to aggregator developers on the list? If not, it should
> > be.
>
> Aggregator developers? Those people who won't let me use a
> greater-than symbol in my titles, no matter what I do to it? There's
> nothing for them but forty lashes, and a strict set of instructions to
> behave themselves, and pay attention to what *I* say my content is,
> not what they might guess I might have meant.
>
> Phil Ringnalda
>
>
>
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