3 ms·

A common bug in a bunch of feed readers

• bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  I'm not sure I understand this bug, as a user of a feed reader if the only thing that changes is the Last-Modified Data and the Etag but the body of the feed does not change - why do I want to get an update? Isn't this the same thing as someone publishes a blog post in 2020 and then updates its publish date to 2024 so it will show up first in Google News without actually changing the content? on edit: I have a sneaking suspicion it's all about who's to be master, as Humpty Dumpty said, the feed owner or the feed consumer, and the feed reader serves the interests of the feed consumer first.
  • yorwba 2y ago
    It's not about updating anything user-visible, but about updating the feed reader's internal cache with the new last-modified timestamp so that it doesn't keep requesting the same feed over and over again.
    • bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      Ah ok, I was tired and didn't pick up the if-modified-since part. Now it makes sense.