In spec-writing, focus rules.

[Aquarionics] Journal – Mindless Coding.: “Adding the namespace suddenly made RSS a scary thing because I, as a developer that has to try to understand this crap, now have a potentially infinite number of tags, all of which somebody, /somewhere/ will want me to support. It also means that RSS, far from doing one thing well (which it did), can now do an infinite number of things, many of them identical, at the whim of some tinpot developer. Or, because I don’t trust single people to come up with perfect standards alone, Badly.”

I very much agree with this sentiment. RSS development definitely got out of hand. Then again, it’s been a great, public try out of what to do and what not to do when writing specs or defining formats. Simplicity still rules. Or let me restate that: focus rules.

On a related note: I just dropped some more non-essential elements from the XFML spec. Release is, as they say, imminent.

Jonathon Delacour: “I noticed that

Jonathon Delacour: “I noticed that Phil Ringnalda had added the (blue and white) RDF button to his weblog, presumably to differentiate his RDF feed from his RSS feed (which uses the traditional orange and white XML button). Once I’d created the ESF button for Nicholas Avenell, I made an RSS2 button. However, Dave Winer stated quite definitely that RSS feeds (including RSS 2.0) should use the XML button. Since he hasn’t, as far as I’m aware, objected to Phil’s RDF button, it seems clear that Dave’s concern is that any RSS feed uses the XML button. […] *all* RSS feeds are supposed to use the XML button and other XML-based feeds can have a separate button with the name of the format.”

Thanks Jonathon!

Cloudmark has reduced my incoming

Cloudmark has reduced my incoming spam from about 20-40 a day to almost 0. Zero spam! Easy setup, no funny rules to enter, it just works. Spam gets filtered automatically to a special spam folder, and it’s a lot more reliable than the spam filters Yahoo! or Hotmail use. Recommended, especially because you can still sign up for the beta for free.