random memes }

RSS-Atom

A small proposal - the Atom Publishing Protocol should be named and referred to as "RSS-Atom".

Why? Because when you subscribe to a feed from a website, you are often offered a list of choices.

RSS-0.92 RSS-2.0 Atom

This is bad user interface design. The end user - who has no deep notion of what these things are and how they differ - has no means of knowing which to pick. A well-designed user interface will hide the redundant choices, and select the most appropriate (probably Atom, going forward). Over the entire universe of applications, we can pretty much count on the fact that not all user interfaces are well-designed. If we can help the end user, we should.

The naming used should result in the list of choices:

RSS-0.92 RSS-2.0 RSS-Atom

Now even with indifferently-done user interfaces the user is given a sufficient clue. Clearly the choices are all of the same "kind". Sorted alphabetically "RSS-Atom" will appear after any "RSS-version-number, which is a clue to the user that Atom is a better choice.

A small aid to hundreds of millions (soon billions?) of users is a big deal.