Mark Pilgrim rewrites Clay Shirky's In Praise of Evolvable Systems to explain RSS.
RSS 0.9x and 2.0 are the Whoopee Cushion and Joy Buzzer of syndication formats. For anyone who has tried to accomplish anything serious with metadata, it’s pretty obvious that of the various implementations of a worldwide syndication format, we have the worst one possible.
Except, of course, for all the others.
Well done Mark. I agree with your general sentiment, but think some of the flaws cited could have been easily avoided and the format would have been just an evolvable. Instead we get to endure the shortcomings of one person's rash decision making and whimsy.
The XSS profile I have proposed is an attempt to apply some common sense and make the most of what has already been done.
