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10/11/2002 1:13:37 AM, "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com> wrote:
>I completely agree with Uche's sentiments. When I first saw the RSS
>brouhaha and read many mentions the need for Ultra-liberal RSS
>parsers[0] I wondered why they bothered with XML and didn't just use
>some other format instead. The only reason I can think of is buzzword
>compliance.
Yup. My perhaps overly-cryptic references to "RSS 3.0" [1] were intended
to make the same point. I'm not sure how seriously anyone in
the RSS world takes this, but compare [2] and [3] and ask yourself
what REAL value XML adds in this particular scenario.
I'm trying to remember my long-ago days in the newspaper software
industry ... I remember the old newswire formats being an annoyance
to parse, and as I understand it the "real" newswires were early adopters of XML.
What about XML was so attractive? I'm guessing that it was mainly
the "labelled data" aspect -- rather than using cryptic delimiters that
implied (to a careful reader of the format spec) what was what, it
just SAYS what is what... and of course the network effect one gets
by being buzzword compliant (tools, tutorials, expertise, etc.).
Does anyone (hi John Cowan!) have a better explanation?
[1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000574
[2] http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/index.txt
[3] http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/index.rss
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