> We should make one final rss format and switch to it. This was the motivation for creating the last several versions of RSS and Atom, if I remember correctly

> We should make one final rss format and switch to it. This was the motivation for creating the last several versions of RSS and Atom, if I remember correctly! Sometimes I wonder if the RSS situation was the original inspiration for https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/. Anyway, RSS parsing is a solved problem in most major languages. Just look for a prominent open source library that handles all the major format variations, and call it a day. It's not like real-world RSS feeds actually comply with any of the standards, anyway. Most parsers need fallbacks and bits of autodetection. ("Is this escaped HTML or plain text or what?") (Full disclosure: I worked on a number of RSS-related projects back in the day and worked with at least one person involved in one of the standardizion attempts.)