> > > Dare Obasanjo wrote: >> I'm confused. What about desktop feed readers that aren't running so >> can't >> poll every hour? How would they show sensible results after the user >> fires >> them up for the first time that week or month. > > That depends what you mean by sensible. It's certainly possible to > approximate an ordering by published date without strictly enforcing that > order across all entries. > >> Anyway, this discussion seems moot because most feed reading apps today >> sort by published date today so it seems weird to be discussing breaking >> behavior expected by hundreds of deployed apps. > > I wasn't suggesting that applications should change the way they do > things. > I'm merely curious why so many people seem to think that ordering by > published date is the one and only "correct" way to sort feed entries. >
I wonder the same. I think being aware one can sort a feed based on various parameters is quite important. I don't think RFC 4287 specifies it has to be ordered in a certain way, RFC 5023 IIRC specifies that collection partial list ought to be ordered by app:edited element but that's it. One point that I believe is quite important to remember is that Atom, though mainly used in a blog-type contexts, is much more generic than that and we should remember it may well be used in all sorts of other contexts where human are not involved or not by using a common feed reader. - Sylvain -- Sylvain Hellegouarch http://www.defuze.org
