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RSS is useful as a creator because it's so under-specified that you can create valid RSS with virtually no effort (ie: printf). It's a huge pain to consume it b
by mmastrac 6y ago
RSS is useful as a creator because it's so under-specified that you can create valid RSS with virtually no effort (ie: printf). It's a huge pain to consume it because every single library needs to have crazy hacks to do things like double-unescaping HTML.
Atom is the better format, but - like any time you work with XML - you should never try to hand-bomb string output. Use an XML library, or preferably an Atom library.
- chrismorgan 6y agoI’d be far happier emitting Atom via printf than RSS via printf. The Atom spec tells me what I should write, whereas RSS goes in for unspecified behaviour and exotic date formats that force me to look up strftime. Beyond that, they’re both XML, which is easy to write.
- ncphil 6y agoThe first time I realized Atom and RSS were actually different standards was when I went to write a feed. "Oh. Well that's interesting..."