RSS, Atom, XML, etc.
- Thread starter kb1ghc
- Start date
Christopher
VIP Member
XML is just the rules of how a document must be formed. It's plain text and is used to transfer information easily without any portability problems (a computer doesn't need a special extension or other program to understand plain text).
RSS and Atom are both XML documents. RSS is a "unofficial" standard, and I believe Atom is too. To work with data, you have to know what your working with, so these standards were put together. They define what you have to put in your documents. For example, part of the RSS standard says you must have title, description and link elements in the document.
So what does that mean? Well, people can use the data in different ways (as I said). Whenever you see a link to RSS, Atom or XML, that means the site is letting you use their information in different ways. Like newsreaders, that use these feeds to show you all the latest news from many sites at a time. Or if your a web developer, you can get scripts that parse the documents and use the infomation on your own site.
I think a lot of attention lately has been around RSS and newsreaders, but it's used simply as another means of exchanging information.
RSS and Atom are both XML documents. RSS is a "unofficial" standard, and I believe Atom is too. To work with data, you have to know what your working with, so these standards were put together. They define what you have to put in your documents. For example, part of the RSS standard says you must have title, description and link elements in the document.
So what does that mean? Well, people can use the data in different ways (as I said). Whenever you see a link to RSS, Atom or XML, that means the site is letting you use their information in different ways. Like newsreaders, that use these feeds to show you all the latest news from many sites at a time. Or if your a web developer, you can get scripts that parse the documents and use the infomation on your own site.
I think a lot of attention lately has been around RSS and newsreaders, but it's used simply as another means of exchanging information.