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One thing I've noticed with podcasts, is that my reader will download the full RSS every day, listing hundreds of episodes, just to see if there's a new one. I

by billpg 5y ago

One thing I've noticed with podcasts, is that my reader will download the full RSS every day, listing hundreds of episodes, just to see if there's a new one. I get why they do this as a new listener will want to start off with a full list of episodes and may want to pick up a show from the start. It would be useful if an RSS could specify a separate URL to query that will only list new episodes, returning an empty RSS (or a standardized HTTP status code) until the new episode is available. The original RSS with the full list would still be the primary URL for the podcast, the one I get when I right-click and select "Copy RSS URL".

mikepurvis 5y ago
This should be doable just using existing Cache-Control/If-Modified-Since headers, shouldn't it? Basically both sides just need to treat the "age" of the feed document as being equal to the newest entry in it.
- onli 5y ago
  Right! This is actually done in blogging platforms, at least in the old ones like Wordpress (last I looked, and I think) and Serendipity. I wouldn't guarantee though that this code still works or that readers do use it...
gglnx 5y ago
Some podcast clients support rfc5005: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5005 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5005
- billpg 5y ago
  When I was writing my comment, it felt like my idea was too obvious for no-one to have already written it up as a formal specification.
dig1 5y ago
IMO, this is not a problem of RSS but how that particular feed endpoint is implemented (assuming your reader will append entries). Usually, popular news sites (that provides RSS/Atom) will have e.g., "/rss/all" endpoint to get all the news for that day, and these entries are refreshed a couple of times per day. Also, they will provide "/rss/latest" refreshed every couple of minutes or so, so it's up to your reader to check that endpoint frequently, parse and populate only the newest entries.

by billpg 5y ago

mikepurvis 5y ago

This should be doable just using existing Cache-Control/If-Modified-Since headers, shouldn't it? Basically both sides just need to treat the "age" of the feed document as being equal to the newest entry in it.

onli 5y ago
Right! This is actually done in blogging platforms, at least in the old ones like Wordpress (last I looked, and I think) and Serendipity. I wouldn't guarantee though that this code still works or that readers do use it...

gglnx 5y ago

Some podcast clients support rfc5005: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5005 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5005

billpg 5y ago
When I was writing my comment, it felt like my idea was too obvious for no-one to have already written it up as a formal specification.

dig1 5y ago

IMO, this is not a problem of RSS but how that particular feed endpoint is implemented (assuming your reader will append entries). Usually, popular news sites (that provides RSS/Atom) will have e.g., "/rss/all" endpoint to get all the news for that day, and these entries are refreshed a couple of times per day. Also, they will provide "/rss/latest" refreshed every couple of minutes or so, so it's up to your reader to check that endpoint frequently, parse and populate only the newest entries.