Chaos Magnet

Grab headlines from a remote RSS feed

When the RSS controversy first surfaced, I couldn't understand why so many people were so gung-ho to jettison RSS. I still don't. Yes, it's good to have a standard. But come on, people, it shouldn't be that big a deal to adapt to new formats. The very first tip I wrote for IBM's developerworks was about reading RSS files (which I mistakenly called RDF files, which is only partially correct) but now that I've been around for a while, I've updated it. The new version, Grab headlines from a remote RSS file shows how to not only grab a file, but also to create a system that converts various versions to a single common format that can then be massaged into the final output. This way, a single XSLT style sheet from, say, Atom to RSS 2.0 could work for everyone, so there was no need to switch, wholesale, to something new and scrap RSS.

One exciting thing is that I wrote to Adam Curry and got his permission to use his blog as an example, and he asked me to let him know when it was published. I don't know whether my not is stuck in his spam filters somewhere or he's just been too swamped to respond -- that's one busy guy! -- but it's still exciting for this MTV-generation boy.