Discussion » ObfuRSScatory syntax

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Posted by Saltation_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
just browsing over the proposed RSS 3.0 spec, as you do, and noted this little subtle future fuckup-creator:
Common Attributes

The "isEmpty" Attribute
<!ATTLIST channel isEmpty (true | false) #IMPLIED "false">
<!ATTLIST item isEmpty (true | false) #IMPLIED "false">
...
The "isUpdated" and "updateNum" Attributes
<!ATTLIST channel isUpdated (true|false) #IMPLIED "false" >
<!ATTLIST item isUpdated (true | false) #IMPLIED "false" >

anyone spot the deliferate mistale?

YES! the attributes are misnamed and/or the implied values are wrong.
eg, what does this mean:
<item isEmpty isUpdated>

uhuh. the Item is both NOT empty and NOT updated.

how long before that trips someone up? eg someone working in a hurry, or late at night, or who's become used to working in an environment of semantically appropriate naming.

either they should flip the names round or the default values. but if you flip the default values, then you force every single channel and item to explicitly set the attribute to be False for every single normal non-exceptional case -- this is bad.

so they need to reverse the names. e.g. hasContent and isUnchanged, both with default=True.

or am i missing something here?
Posted by Saltation_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
AAARRGGGGHHH!!!!!
The <lastBuildDate> Element
<!ELEMENT lastBuildDate (#CDATA) >

This element's content must specify an exact date conforming to the IETF RFC822 specification.

Its purpose is to specify the exact time when the feed was last produced or generated. For example, at the time of this writing if a feed was produced its content would be "Thu, 30 Jul 2005 16:43:00 GMT".


or if you're greek, get knotted.

bloody americans. this sort of thing REALLY winds me up. [Y]YYYYMMDD:HHMMSS ZON for god's sake. it's not rocket science. and you're not the only country on earth.

memories of weeks turning into months back in 99 spent trying to get the new "owners" of a financial xml routing/adapter system we'd come in on to try to make multi-product (...) to allow a non-american date format. "our german clients... YOUR german clients too... can not run your software for much of the year. "may" is "mai", for example."
response:
"that doesn't make any sense."
and after several weeks of explaining:
"well, they'll just have to change their infrastructure setup to english"
my forehead is now much flatter and my old desk is now firewood
Posted by Alfie_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
Aha, your last line explains the mind numbing tedium of the preceeding two posts.
Posted by Alfie_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
And as far as the question posed at the end of the first post, may I suggest the answer to be "Any sense of perspective"?
Posted by Saltation_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
you're kinda missing the point there, mate
Posted by Alfie_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
You did a good job of hiding it. :)
Posted by jeffld_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 

1-12-2005

Is it December or January? Makes a HUGE difference...
Posted by Alfie_DUPE1, around August 2005:
 
True, but I still stand by the fact that sharing a dull programming story from 6 years ago with us is particularly snooze-tastic.