inessential by Brent Simmons

Echo feedback, no time

I’ve gotten some email regarding Echo, a new format for weblogs. Unfortunately this whole thing came up as I was getting a new release of NetNewsWire out and then going to WWDC. I’ve had absolutely no time to read it.

And I probably won’t have time until I return from WWDC.

Here’s my general take:

I care about software, not specs. I have not a shred of idealism about specs. My support for standards is purely pragmatic. (In other words: I strongly support standards, but for pragmatic reasons.)

I’d rather spend my time fixing bugs and doing cool new features. I don’t relish the idea of writing new code to parse another format.

But—my philosophy is that NetNewsWire should work with what’s out there. It works with RSS 0.9x, RSS 1.0, and RSS 2.0 currently. If there’s a new format, and people use it and like it, I’ll support it. In other words, if this format is generated by one or more of the popular weblog publishing tools, then support in NetNewsWire is pretty much a given.

This effort seems to me to be more about fixing political bugs, real or perceived (same thing, maybe), than fixing problems in RSS itself. I could be wrong, since I haven’t had any time to look at the specifics.

About RSS and its political issues I have nothing to say. I’m Switzerland on this stuff. My philosophy is just to support what people use.

Anyway... about the technical merits of the new format, I’d like to take a look and provide feedback, but I won’t be able to until the weekend.