Re: A newbies opinion (if I still qualify!)

["James Shaw" <yahoo@coveryourasp.com>]

> would it have made your job more difficult if the three outstanding 
formats called "RSS" had different names, and pointed to each other?

Well, I think it would. "RSS-basic" and "RSS-extensible" tell 
developers to look at RSS-basic first (Sorry RSS-dev if that's not 
what you want) and if it satisfies their needs, fine (which for the 
majority it probably will).

I would have been lacking something, so I'd then look at RSS-
extensible. Now, admittedly, that's what happened anyway, because 
like it or not the 0.9x moniker implies "more basic" than 1.0.

Look at the situation this morning - PRISM and OPML have both been 
brought up. I haven't heard of either, and from the names I have no 
idea which is more suitable or should be looked at first. 

Once anyone buys into a "standard" they feel safe in their decision - 
they did the "right thing". So if I'd got an email saying "why aren't 
you using PRISM" I wouldn't even be having this conversation.

My point of view won't change, count this as a vote. Regardless of 
the merits of any other XML syndication methods out there RSS will be 
stronger if it offers a RSS-basic and RSS-extensible. 

It makes RSS bigger, more flexible and more appealing to newcomers. 

I'll try and give an anology with cars. Say you want a sports car and 
xxx has 6 models and a book full of options, and yyy offers one car. 
Even if the one car that yyy offers is EXACTLY what you want, most 
would go with company xxx, because they have choices. To me, having 
RSS-somethings strengthens RSS.

James Shaw
http://ASPRSS.com/ (coming June 15th)