RSS

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RSS

• Michael Horne

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Contents

1. What is RSS?
2. History
3. RSS and Java

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What is RSS?

• A method for syndication of news
• News
• Slashdot, Wired and other news based sites
• Changelogs
• Recent Changes
• Dynamic Bookmarks
• Firefox
• RSS is a XML application

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What is RSS?

• RSS Aggregators
• Bloglines
• Planet Rhodes
• Aggregation of many weblogs at rhodes

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History of RSS

• Unfortunately RSS has had a messy development
  history
• Lack of standards
• Implementations can expect to need support for 7
  not so subtly different versions

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Definition

• Depending on implementation RSS could stand for
• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary
• RDF Site Summary

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History of RSS

• Initially produced by Netscape (ver 0.90)
• Portals to news sites
• Overly complicated
• Planned to simplify
• Netscape stopped due to lack of interest

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History of RSS

• Userland developed (0.91 through 0.9x)
• Overly simplified
• Concurrently a non-commercial group developed 1.0
  (based on RDF)
• Extensive use of namespaces

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History of RSS

• Userland Released 2.0
• Modular
• Easy Migration from the 0.9x branch

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RSS 2.0

• ltrss version"2.0" xmlnsdc"http//purl.org/dc/el
  ements/1.1/"gt
• ltchannelgt
• lttitlegtXML.comlt/titlegt
• ltlinkgthttp//www.xml.com/lt/linkgt
• ltdescriptiongtXML.com features a rich mix of
  information and services for the XML
  community.lt/descriptiongt
• ltlanguagegten-uslt/languagegt
• ltitemgt
• lttitlegtNormalizing XML, Part 2lt/titlegt
• ltlinkgtttp//www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/...lt/link
  gt
• ltdescriptiongtIn this second and final
  look...lt/descriptiongt
• ltdccreatorgtWill Provostlt/dccreatorgt
• ltdcdategt2002-12-04lt/dcdategt
• lt/itemgt
• ...
• lt/channelgt
• lt/rssgt

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RSS and JAVA

• Commonly done with beans
• Easily implemented as it is XML based
• Commercial versions available although expensive

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Questions?