On Feb 3, 2008 8:06 AM, Daniel Aleksandersen < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > …I should probably use <archive > xmlns="http://purl.org/syndication/history/1.0"/> as well? What is the > point of xmlns:prefixes="URI" attributes? Really, why make a standard if > no one follows it? > There are basically three types of tools: XML+XMLNS-aware ones, and ones cobbled together by looking at examples and writing software that works with the examples are the big two. Given the reach of Atom and its dialects, there will be a *lot* of implementations out there that do things the Wrong Way. You can either simplify the standard and limit your implementations, or give the standard some flexibility and maximize your adoption rate. But I said three types of tools, didn't I? The third will be feed aggregators that want to maximize the number of feeds they can handle. Given the number of bad feeds there are, pumping these through a typical XML parser will reject many feeds that they still want to process. These aggregators, consequently, may benefit from doing their own parsing, treating Atom like they treat HTML: tag soup. These applications may fail to process some strictly standards-compliant feeds, because they do uncommon things. You might argue that this is just them doing things the Wrong Way, but it's an explicit, conscious decision, not due to their own incompetence. David
