[wp-hackers] Ditch RDF and RSS 0.92

[Owen Winkler]

David Chait wrote:
> For a 2.1 release?  If someone has the stats to say what programs and user 
> agents are accessing which major feed types, and that 99% can handle being 
> redirected, that's fine.
> 
> For a 2.0.1 release.  Bad idea.  I've already seen a few things as either 
> suggestions or implementations (at least, I recall) that weren't bugfixes, 
> and should be saved for a next feature/point release -- and this joins the 
> list.

I agree - this shouldn't be part of 2.0.1.  We would need to augment our 
support of RSS2 and especially Atom.  I would love to see a full 
bi-directional Atom API implemented for WP.


Sam Angove wrote:
> If that's a real problem, I'd be more inclined to blame it on the API
> being too unstable. *Is* it a real problem? The code's better now than
> it used to be, and hopefully there'll be less changes needed between
> versions now that things are abstracted more. wp-rdf.php (e.g.) was
> only changed 8 times in the last year, and not once since September.
> It isn't requiring constant attention.

Is it that it doesn't *require* constant attention, or that it's so 
outdated that nobody cares to pay it any mind?  We've now done a major 
release with WP 2.0, and you're telling me that there was no change to 
rdf over the last three months?  Sounds like neglect to me.


David House wrote:
> On 15/01/06, Roy Schestowitz <r at schestowitz.com> wrote:
>> > You must ensure that you do not break people's links. When it comes to
>> > feeds, people are lazy and careless. They would possible neglect to update
>> > URL's in their feed reader.
> 
> We could redirect both to wp-rss2.php. I'd much rather have two
> obsolete redirects hanging around than two obsolete files hanging
> around that have to keep being updated every time we make a relevant
> API change.
> 
> Every client nowadays supports RSS2 and Atom. Redirecting from
> RDF/RSS.92 -> RSS2 would be harmless, in all likelihood.

Well, I don't know about that...  Speaking as someone who actually uses 
rdf (a service I use requires it instead of RSS2 for some reason), it 
would bother me if I couldn't tell that the feed wasn't being served 
correctly.

For example, if WP redirects rdf to RSS, then I see no errors on my blog 
server.  But if it 404s on a request for the rdf feed when rdf 
functionality isn't there, then I'm more likely to see it.

Providing plugins that recreate the retired feed types should be 
academic, since we already have the code available.  Retiring the feeds 
would mean less code to maintain, and that's a good thing.

Owen