intertwingly

It’s just data

RSS progress and a big missed opportunity


Lots of really, really, really good progress on RSS.  Now, I'd like to make a plea.  Slow down.

RSS 0.94 added a number of elements without consideration as to what possibilities were out there once namespaces were added.  Now it looks like namespaces will be added.

What RSS 2.0 needs now is a focus on simplicity and some serious deprecation.  Strip it to the core.  Then have two modes (just like HTML does)... a transitional mode which allows anybody to add any element they wish with or without namespaces, including the classic 0.91 ones like skipHours and the proposed 0.94 ones.  And a strict mode in which the only additions permitted are ones that reside in namespaces.

Before somebody says that we don't have time for that... how long does it take to remove elements from a document?