Atom Feed Format Was Born 20 Years In the past
This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the trouble that grew to become the Atom feed format. All of it started on June 16, 2003, with a blog post from Apache Software program Basis contributor Sam Ruby asking for suggestions about what constitutes a well-formed weblog entry.
The event of RSS 2.0 had been an unplanned hopscotch from a small group at Netscape to a smaller one at UserLand Software program, however Atom was a barn elevating. A whole lot of software program builders, net publishers and technologists gathered for a dialogue within the summary that led to a concrete effort to construct a well-specified syndication format and related publishing API that might develop into Web requirements. Work was completed on a venture wiki that grew to over 1,500 pages. Every part was up for a vote, together with a plebiscite on selecting a reputation that ballooned right into a four-month-long bikeshed dialogue through which Pie, Echo, Wingnut, Feedcast, Phaistos and several other dozen options lastly, mercifully, miraculously misplaced out to Atom.
The road map of the Atom wiki lists the folks, firms and tasks that jumped on the probability to create a brand new format for feeds. XML specification co-author Tim Bray wrote:
The time to jot down all of it down and standardize it isn’t once you’re first struggling to invent the know-how. We now have aggregators and publishing methods and engines like google and you-name-it, and I feel the neighborhood collectively understands fairly effectively what you want, what you do not want, and what a great syntax appears to be like like.
So, now’s the time.
As somebody whose solely contribution to the venture was voting on names, I feel I used to be too fast to rule out Phaistos, a suggestion impressed by a clay disc produced by movable kind earlier than 1600 B.C. Feedback on the wiki web page proposing that monicker provide a pattern of the identify wars:
MikeBlumenthal: Does one of many nice mysteries of antiquity, a doc which, after nearly 100 years of making an attempt, continues to be a thriller not solely as to its which means however at the same time as to its function, and which stands as a paragon of impenetrability, actually match as a reputation for an interoperability format?
Jayseae: Really, the present state of RSS is just about a thriller — why ought to this venture be any completely different? I just like the affiliation with publishing — although I am undecided the pronunciation actually flows. Maybe it may very well be shortened by some means?
AsbjornUlsberg: Sorry, however I do not prefer it. We may simply as gladly give the venture every other Greek-sounding identify, like Papadopolous.
Arising from all of the chaos and debate, the Atom format grew to become a superbly specified IETF customary in 2005 edited by Mark Nottingham and Robert Sayre that is used right this moment in tens of millions of feeds. It’s the most well-liked syndication format that is by no means argued about.
Everyone bought that out of their system on the wiki.