Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 12:41:32PM +0100,
James Abley <[email protected]> wrote
HTTP already provides Cache-Control: / Expires: to indicate how long
a client may like to wait before checking if the representation has
been updated. Would that meet your requirement?
IMHO (I'm not the OP), no. Feed producers (who know the duration of
the feed) may not have a way to set HTTP headers. Also, HTTP headers
are not end-to-end, they are lost if, for instance, the feed is
transferred by non-HTTP means (such as rsync or scp). I would prefer a
solution inside the feed.
+1. the update properties of a feed are a property of the feed, not of
the protocol. these things are related, but keeping the properties as
part of the feed format would make a feed document more self-contained,
would allow feed publication in scenarios where HTTP headers cannot be
easily set, and might also allow more sophisticated/specialized
properties than HTTP's cache control.
thanks for the pointer to RSS 1.0's properties. i am not quite sure
whether i like what has been done there, but now that i know that it
exists in RSS 1.0, it would be really interesting to know how many feed
providers and consumers actually use it, and why it is one of those
properties that did exist in some RSS version, but did not make it into
Atom...
cheers,
erik wilde tel:+1-510-6432253 - fax:+1-510-6425814
[email protected] - http://dret.net/netdret
UC Berkeley - School of Information (ISchool)
