[wp-hackers] Need more RSS hooks

[Danny Ayers]

On 1/27/06, Rob <powzor at gmail.com> wrote:

>Aggregators will
> obviously ignore XSLT, since if they do display feed data visually it
> will usually be in a uniform way, either through their own XSLT or
> through other methods.

Aggregators do currently ignore XSLT, but visual styling is only one
application. There could potentially be a lot of utility. If a
document in an aggregator-unknown XML format includes reference to an
XSLT stylesheet, that could provide the translation necessary into one
of the formats the agg *does* know (this is pretty much the idea
behind microformats/GRDDL).

So I think it would be very wrong to assume aggregrators will never
use XSLT and close the door on possible syndicate/aggregate
applications just to make WP's feed look a bit prettier when displayed
through a degenerate user agent. I don't think this will be problem,
just that any visual styling XSLT ref will need to be clearly
identifiable as such (and I will need to read the specs very soon...)

> Seriously, including some pretty XSLT does nothing to affect the
> usability of the feeds; those technologies that don't support it, either
> through incompetence (like Amaya) or deliberately (like aggregators)
> will simply ignore it. It would, however, provide a significant benefit
> to most users, who would rather be confronted by a nice message when
> they click a feed link, not a bunch of XML that makes them think they've
> broken something.

I think your basic conclusion is probably right - that there's nothing
to lose here. Even if only 50% of HTML browsers get the benefit of the
styling, that's still an improvement over 100% seeing raw XML (or
CSS-styled XML).

> I can't see why compatibility is an issue at all.

There's no answer to that.

Cheers,
Danny.


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http://dannyayers.com