December 22, 2005

Not Sure How I Missed This, But Bob DuCharme's Blogging

bobdc.blog: Scripting the addition of XML files to the eXist XQuery database

...and, as the above linked title suggests, has a nice intro into a fantastic open source XQuery database engine, eXist.

Scripting the addition of XML files to the eXist XQuery database

Saxon is great for getting to know XQuery syntax (see part one and part two of my "Getting Started with XQuery" articles in XML.com for more on this), but it reads all of the data to query into memory, and much of the point of XQuery is to work with large, indexed, disk-based collections of XML that won't fit into memory. I've started playing with the open-source eXist XML database for this.

Sweet! (both the article, and the fact Bob's blogging.)

Subscribed. [NOTE: This is the short summary Atom feed. If you visit the Bob's entry page, there's a full entry Atom feed as well. Oh, and RSS "2.0" too.

BTW... why can't RSS "2.0" die a horrible "2.0" death? RSS 1.x/RDF is fine, but "2.0" really needs to just go away. Why?

Well, beyond the confusion of the chosen naming conventions of two active RSS projects, theres the fact that the RSS 1.x/RDF folks actually care about an effort to build upon a standardized format. While I'm pretty sure-to-absolutely positive the RSS "2.0" data feed for Kurt's and my podcast is evily innaccurate and would probably be refused by the Feed Validator with a simple "come back when you have a clue" error message in place of what would normally be a listing of all that is wrong with it, I have a real problem with the "movement" behind the RSS "2.0" fork. To be completely honest, I created what I assume to be an invalid RSS "2.0" data format in protest.

Huh? Well, I figure the best way to pay tribute to those in whom refuse to promote good practices in XML usage (see: my OPML post from a while back for more info) which includes usage of namespaces and an effort to standardize the specification is to take the same sort of attitude with the RSS "2.0" files I produce by hand. I mean if it looks (kinda) like an XML data feed and smells (even if the smell is more reminiscent of a data feed that just took a swim in the local sewage treatment plant and less like an actual standardized data feed) like an XML data feed, its an XML data feed, right?

No. But if a "loosey-goosey" non-standardized format is the suggested "power of RSS '2.0'" then loosey-goosey it will be. If "RSS happened outside of the standards bodies for good reasons" then for the same "good reasons" I guess there's no need for me to make any effort at conforming to a specification that, if it exists, doesn't really NEED to exist in the first place, right? :)

Of course, I'm not suggesting that this RSS "2.0" feed is all their will ever be for the eXplorations podcast. The Atom feed is something thats part of a much bigger "interactive podcast weblication" I'm working on. It's a small app that is about 1/3 of way done after 2 hours of work so it should be complete and live soon enough. But I can tell you right now I have no plans, desires, or intent to make the RSS "2.0" feed part of this app. It will be available, but I'm not going to spend my time trying to adhere to a spec that, if exists, I wouldn't even know where to find it.

Oh, and please... don't show me. Honestly, I don't care. If I want a hack, I'll hack my own data feed format. I don't, so I'll use Atom instead and be done with it.