Updated: 04/01/2003; 12:00:00 AM.

Tue, 01 Apr 2003

Redesign In progress. Discuss.   00:00   Comment

Mon, 31 Mar 2003

Brad Wilson: I wonder when my program is going to get TiVo-style smarts and say "If you like Don, Sam, Joshua, and Ingo, then you'll love Sam Gentile and Craig Andera!". Note that Tivo doesn't say if you love CNN, MSNBC, and the History Channel, you'll love the Discovery Channel.  The recommendations are at the individual show level.  Now that's what I'd like to see. A spambayes in reverse.  Read a few blog entries and push on little green thumbs up or red thumbs down icons.  Then any all all posts on topics that interest you in your greater neighboorhood will come to your aggregator.   10:42   Comment

In processing a comment API request, I may end up grabbing excerpts, formatting, etc.  I can also spell check.  Would there be interest in a variant of the comment API which simply returns back what would have been posted instead of actually doing it? It seems to me that there are the following options for implementing this API: Add an optional element within the RSS item itself indicating that a preview is desired. Add an element outside the RSS item but inside the HTTP body. Add a HTTP header. Change the resource (i.e., URI) to which such requests are posted. One thing I think is important is that such an option not be ignored.  In other words, I presume that a client would prefer a failure (HTTP status and/or SOAP fault) than to have the request actually processed.  Unless somebody sees something I don't, that reduces the options to two: SOAP headers with mustUnderstand attributes have this semantic, and clearly routing to a different URL can be presumed to do this effectively. Suggestions?   08:42   Comment

Sun, 30 Mar 2003

Dare Obasanjo: I'll definitely add support to Joe's CommentAPI to RSS Bandit but I doubt I'll be doing the same for Sam's alternative SOAP version since I can't see any motivation for supporting both besides buzzword compliance. At the cost of optionally supporting an SOAP envelope and responding in kind, I get better and easier integration with tools and languages like Radio and C#.  If two elements and future extensibility is too heavyweight for you, then no problem.  That's what optional means. As to your uncertainty about which version of XHTML is meant by <xhtml:body>, wouldn't the same concern (and more) apply to <content:encoded>?   20:00   Comment

Chris Anderson: if you favorite aggregator isn't showing the full text of my blog, send them a mail and get them to support <xhtml:body>!   14:29   Comment

My weblog now validates as XHTML strict, and my implementation of the Comment API will now produce and consume XHTML bodies. Users of back-level browsers may find that the comment form doesn't remember you any more.  If this function is important to you, you will need to find a browser that passes this test. My WSDLs for the comment API (example) simply declare xhtml bodies as mixed sequences of any for now.  Let me know if it would help if this were restricted in some manner.   10:43   Comment

Sat, 29 Mar 2003

Don uncaves.  ;-) Accordingly, I've converted my rss 2.0 feed from <content:encoded> to the to the more bandwidth and xpath friendly <xhtml:body>.  It looks like gotdotnet and blogx users will soon follow. Hopefully  the owners of the wellformedweb and w3future weblogs will take notice. The updated feed is valid, and it uses namespaces in exactly the way that rss 2.0 and xhtml intend.  I've tested it with radio and syndirella.   19:16   Comment

Don Box's RSS 2.0 feed now supports <content:encoded>.  I was kinda hoping that it would support <xhtml:body> instead (literally instead of encoded).  I'm sure that NewsGator would have adapted.  Needless to say, I would have too.   11:35   Comment

Fri, 28 Mar 2003

ECMA: ECMA International (ECMA) is completing extensions to the widely used ECMAScript standard, currently being updated to its 4th Edition. The enhancements known as E4X (ECMAScript for XML) standardize the syntax and semantics of a general-purpose, cross-platform, vendor-neutral set of programming language extensions adding native XML support in ECMAScript. John Schneider documented some of the earlier work that influenced this spec.  I haven't kept close tabs on how it has evolved since then, but I'm confident that Tim Bray would approve.   16:47   Comment

Gordon Weakliem: While I accept that a large part of the problem with XML may be the popular APIs for dealing with it, I'm not sure Tim's answers are on target. Tim does draw the parallel to socket libraries in talking about interop. Sockets are still a pain in the neck to code at the socket level, I just hardly ever have to do it anymore. Maybe I'll feel the same about XML when I can substitute "XML" for "socket". What's good about sockets isn't that you have to program at that level, it's that you can.  The same thing should be true about xml.  The problem comes in when people fool themselves into believing that xml should only be produced by programs for consumption by other programs.   13:19   Comment

Seairth Jacobs: Just when I thought that content negotiation was finally going to make it, I discover...   09:20   Comment

This weblog now supports the comment API, with a few additions. Upon success, not only will a HTTP 200 status code be returned, but the body will contain an updated RSS item with the link, sanitized description, etc.  Should there be any failures, I will report back with a HTTP 500 status code and a SOAP fault. If the request comes in with a SOAP envelope and/or rdf:RDF element, I will respond in kind.  That's just the kinda guy I am.  Note that neither of these are required in order to do basic functions, and if not present, the response will be a clean simple item with no wrappers or namespace declaration.  However, be forewarned that in the future there may be additional functionality which may require SOAP and/or RDF.  The commitment is that basic functionality will not require such wrappers.   08:37   Comment

Mon, 24 Mar 2003

Obituary   06:27   Comment

Thu, 20 Mar 2003

Rael Dornfest: The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference has TrackBacks (and their associated auto-discovery RDF) baked into every single keynote, tutorial, session, and BoF page. This means you can target your bloggings of the event, providing both us, the organizers, and your peers with live feedback on the goings on. <good on you, terrie!>   21:41   Comment

Top 100 Technorati now sports the familiar white on orange icons for a number of feeds.  Doing a quick scan the pattern seems to be that only those weblogs that have autodiscovery tags are so listed.   19:47   Comment

Before reading this, please read this.   12:49   Comment

Wed, 19 Mar 2003

Gary Burd: I checked in the basic code at Source Forge. Cool.  Please add rubys to the project.   21:28   Comment

Due to persistant prodding by Dare, I've created an addendum dictionary.  Leave comments here if there are particularly troublesome words that you would like included.   11:26   Comment

I'm working on a membership registration service for intertwingly.  At the moment, it simply replies that all ids are unavailable, but it will shortly send out confirmation emails and process responses. Details on what I intend this service to be for can be found on the registration page.  Feedback welcome.   10:20   Comment

Joe Gregorio: Attacking or trying to tear down other peoples work is non-productive and plainly not my style. All I can say is that statements like this are not the way to get my cooperation. While a number of intelligent people have contributed to the thread mentioned above, I still believe that creative solutions exist to all the "problems" outlined there. Ones that are script/template friendly.  Which are regexp compatible.  Which are REST and SOAP compatible.  Compatible with all the aggregators that I know of.  And, in an area that I had not previously considered exploring, RDF compatible. Tomorrow I plan to name that tune.  After I locate my asbestos underwear.   08:25   Comment