tommorris Tom Morris
Jaikus from tommorris
Sunday, 12 October 2008
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The problem I have is that if I'm using, say, Safari and I click on a link to an XML feed, it suddenly changes it to feed:// - meaning that if I want to copy and paste the URI of the resource, I have to copy the URI into a text editor, delete the word 'feed' and put the 'http' back in, then copy it again. The way I figure it is that if I can't copy a URI from my browser and paste it as an argument into curl, it's not really a useful URI at all. My browser should tell me the location of the resource in the location bar - not a pseudo-protocol prefix.
The solution was to not jump as quickly as the RSS people tried to - contacted the browser manufacurers and tried to explain to them that they should pivot on MIME type plus content inspection - if it gets back something that smells like XML, have a look inside and if it looks like an RSS/Atom feed (ie. it has the Atom xmlns declaration or the typical elements of an RSS/Atom feed), offer the user the ability to subscribe to it in their favourite application. MIME type plus content inspection seems to solve the problem.
Plus, some people consider having the XML 'spew' into the browser a fault. I consider it a feature. The behaviour of Firefox is a lot more sensible when it encounters XML than Safari - Safari takes all the strings out of the document and just throws them up on the page, whereas Firefox puts the elements and attributes there with syntax highlighting. Of course, this is why you should put some kind of simple XSLT on each XML file you publish, so browsers can present it at least readably.
Of course, eventually, feeds will just be embedded inside the (X)HTML or inferred from the logical structure of the page, and the very concept of publishing a separate feed will disappear. Let's hope so, anyway.
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I have an utter loathing of pseudo-protocols, and am very glad Firefox doesn't pretend that an HTTP resource is anything else. If you want to handle RSS and Atom feeds differently than HTML or generic XML content, serve them with the correct MIME type. :)
I like the javascript: pseudo-protocol even less.
Saturday, 11 October 2008
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008
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Welcome to Jaiku, Dan.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
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Welcome to Jaiku. It publishes FOAF and SIOC! Woo!
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Monday, 25 February 2008
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Friday, 28 December 2007
Monday, 26 November 2007
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No, but I can give you some notes on what we discussed:
- the BBC launched an iPhone specific news and podcast site recently.
- Is this right?
- There are a few issues - developer time, iPhone marketshare vs. mindshare
- One of the most prominent things that came up was that standards are important here, and that the iPhone is one of the few devices that is designed nicely
In the end, there wasn't clear consensus on a yay/nay - but it seems that we should be build out and try to reach iPhone users if it is practical to do so, hopefully without breaking the 'One Web' principle that the W3C and Tim Berners-Lee are promoting.
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Friday, 23 November 2007
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I think it's time to write a decent life-streaming script.
Monday, 19 November 2007
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That's very cool.
Sunday, 18 November 2007
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I just don't think they are tremendously interesting. A widget platform and a mobile platform with no handsets. I think I'll just spend my time on open standards that are actually a bit more open - like FOAF and J2ME...
Friday, 16 November 2007
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Comments from tommorris