The tech blogosphere hasn't exactly been inspiring me lately.  With topics like "is this the end of the financial world" (it isn't) and "Is Blogging dead because of Twitter" (it isn't) there hasn't been much to respond to. 

So I thought I'd take on one of those "rights of passage" that every tech blogger needs to weigh in on instead.  I don't like this topic but I was going to have to tackled it some day.

RSS Vs. Atom

It really is pretty simple from my view.  Atom is an improvement on RSS.  The Atom standard looked at RSS, determined "what's right" and "what's wrong" with RSS and then tried to save what was right while fixing what was wrong.  Atom would not exist without RSS and RSS deserves reverence for that but that doesn't mean Atom isn't better. 

It is. 

More over, Atom is necessary to move syndication forward.  Programmers trying to use feeds need to know what format the payload is in.  Programmers need a set way to extend the syndication format they are using.  Programmers need a valid timestamp.

Its telling that Microsoft, who is desperate to suck up to the community on this issue, chose to support RSS but did so by essentially converting it to Atom. 

Beyond technical issues RSS is too mired in politics.  I'm in favor of the improvements that Roger Cadenhead and co. made but no one's paying attention to them (or to that RSS Advisory committee) so it doesn't matter much.  RSS supporters have made their support of it into a religion and religions don't get revised.

THAT is the problem.  Technology, and science in general for that matter, should not be turned into a religion.  It should change as our knowledge expands. 

As I said, I put this post off because its one of those rare topics that really does make me angry.  Especially at Bloggers, including those I normally admire, who claim that RSS should stay the same forever. 

Puh-Lease! 

That said, and for the record, I'm not a zealot.  If you have software that only support RSS I'm not saying you should rush to rewrite your software.  This is a change that needs to be done by attrition and if all the new software comes out supporting Atom we'll eventually get to where we need to be.  Its important for the future but not necessarily urgent in the present. 

That said, it does need to be done.  It's time to move on and realize that RSS doesn't serve all the purposes it needs to anymore.  Technology is not religion and people who claim to love technology should support the improvement of it. 

Addendum: For the record, as a semantic web supporter, I wish we'd ended up with an RDF based syndication format.  But Atom will do and maybe some day we can move on from there. 

The inspiration for my last post was an excellent article by Tom Lee that echoed a lot of my thoughts on the subject.  Here's a quote...

Although I'm tempted to avoid the baggage that comes with it, this trend does fit pretty comfortably into the push/pull paradigm of the late 90s. I have good reason for that reticence: as anyone who's lived through periods of both thin and fat client triumphalism knows, enthusiasm for different technological approaches is cyclical, driven by whatever applications people consider most exciting at the time, and along the way shoehorning a lot of ill-suited apps into the hot paradigm du jour.

But this time the demand for push protocols is more than just a fad. It's also a sign of our increasing technological sophistication. Polling is no longer an option for a lot of reasons, but all of them have to do with computing's ubiquity: there are too many users, too many devices, and no patience for less than immediate performance. Broadcast was fine when technology was just entertainment; pull was fine when technology was just a supplement to our lives. But now it seems that the network is driving our daily activities, and we can't wait around for it to do so.

It really is a great post and I'd suggest everyone head over and read the whole thing.  What I wanted to add, what I don't think Mr. Lee covers enough, is why this is so important. 

I don't think people grasp just how significant syndication is and what a big part it will play in our lives as time goes on. The nascent point here is that our world is becoming more and more computer based and as that happens we will get more and more opportunities to syndicate data. 

I think this will happen in a few parts.  The first part is what we're in the middle of now.  The world will get closer and closer to having "a PC on every desktop".  As that starts to happen you'll see those PCs being used as more than just glorified typewriters.  One of those additional uses will be to broadcast notifications.  From there that communication will be extended to anyone who would be interested in the information.

So lets take the example of a school.  First the teacher and the principal both get a computer.  Then the school realizes the Teacher can use the PC to document sending little Johnny to the Principal's office.  Soon they'll realize that they can use some sort of "Push" messaging to have the computer inform the Principal to expect Johnny when he's sent.  Finally the school will realize that little Johnny's parents might want to know when he's been sent to the Principal's office and that the computer can deliver a message to their desktop just as easily as it did to the Principal's desktop. 

Then we're off to the races...

Remember that everything is an event.  Whether its your credit card payment being received, the IRS getting your tax return, or a change in your sick relative's heart monitor.  Everything you want to know about your life is an event and eventually every one of those events will be documented in a computer.  Once that happens you're just a chunk of code away from knowing about that event in real time. 

Since the mass adoption of the PC our world has been getting smaller and smaller.  Push based syndication represents the ultimate step in that process as we start to create a world where each person is constantly connected to all the information they care about. 

One topic that has been noticeably missing on this blog is the classic RSS vs. Atom debate.  Some day I'll probably do a quick post on it but I have to admit that the subject doesn't interest me that much.  This is because I realized a while back that it just doesn't matter.

Both are nothing more than short term stop-gaps in the final analysis.

Every gadget or piece of software is backed up by an ideal.  For TV the ideal is to reproduce an image exactly as it is in real life, for an x-ray machine it's to perfectly represent the inside of a human body and for a car it's to move from Point A to Point B in a way comfortable enough that you don't realize you're moving. 

But because technology can't quite match the ideal yet each one of the above examples falls short.  That's something we have to accept in life but that doesn't mean we stop wanting the ideal.  That's why everyone was fine with their normal TVs until HDTV came along.

We accept current limitations but deep down we know they're just a stop-gap until something closer to the ideal comes along.

In that same way  RSS and Atom is a stop-gap.  The ideal they represent is the instantaneous delivery of relevant information to the user. But neither are instantaneous and that is the flaw of "Pull" based technology in general.  Which in turn is why it will eventually be replaced.

So how do we move from one technology to another?  Generally little parts of the technology are created one by one.  Each of these technologies on their own don't solve the problem but eventually someone comes along to tie them all together in a product that works better than the current system.  That solution then replaces the stop-gap with something closer to the ideal. 

Right now we're well into that process on the syndication front.   All the pieces are already there in the form of Cellular Phones, SMS, MMS, Blackberry,Exchange Servers and a plethora of other "push" technologies.  They sit just waiting for someone to string them together into a better solution.  When that happens RSS and Atom are done and since the technology is already widespread we're probably close to the end of RSS/Atom's cycle. 

The only piece not in widespread use yet is the technology on the delivery end.  Have you noticed people have been talking about XMPP a lot lately?

XMPP may not be the answer but the concept is there and eventually a technology similar to it is going to be adopted.  When that  happens "push" is going to rule the day.  I'm not saying "pull" is going to disappear tomorrow but its days are definitely numbered.  So you can debate all you want about RSS vs Atom, in the end technology (as it seems to always do) will solve the conflict for you.  Better to spend your time thinking about the future in my opinion...