The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
Folks, I hate to be insistent, however, I think that in the mail below I offered some pretty compelling reasons why lists should be entries rather than turning feeds into lists. Could someone please comment on this? Is there some point that I'm completely missing? What is wrong with my suggestion that lists-are-entries is much more useful than the alternative? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Wyman Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 5:10 PM To: 'Mark Nottingham' Cc: atom-syntax@imc.org Subject: RE: Top 10 and other lists should be entries, not feeds. Mark Nottingham wrote: Are you saying that when/if Netflix switches over to Atom, they shouldn't use it for the Queue? No. I'm saying that if Netflix switches over to Atom, what they should do is insert the Queue information, as a list, into a single entry within the feed. This will not only preserve the nature of Atom feeds as feeds but also allow NetFlix a number of new and potentially interesting opportunities for providing data to customers. Most important among these will be the ability to include multiple lists in the feed (i.e. in addition to the Queue, they could also include their Top 10 list as well as a set of recommendations based on user experience. They might even include a list of 10 most recent transactions on your account) Each list would be a distinct entry. To make life easier on aggregators, each entry type should probably use the same atom:id across versions. This allows the aggregators to discard earlier, now out of date entries. NetFlix would also be able to intermix information such as the Queue List with non-list entries. For instance, they might have a Message from NetFlix that they want to include in the feed or, they might include a series of movie reviews that were carefully selected for the specific user. Basically, by using entries for lists instead of converting the entire feed into a list, NetFlix is able to offer a much richer and much more satisfying experience to their users. The ability of Atom to carry both lists and non-lists as entries means that Atom is able to offer a much more flexible and powerful mechanism to NetFlix than can be had from the less-capable RSS V2.0 solution. I think that if I were NetFlix, I would want to have the opportunity to experiment with and find ways to exploit this powerful capability. The richer the opportunity for communications between NetFlix and their customers, the greater the opportunity they have to generate revenues. The alternative to using entries rather than feeds would be creating multiple feeds per user. That strikes me as a solution which is ugly on its face and unquestionably increases the complexity of the system for both NetFlix and its customers. The list-in-entry solution is much more elegant and much more powerful. bob wyman
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
What would you like the working group to do? On 31/08/2005, at 8:36 AM, Bob Wyman wrote: Folks, I hate to be insistent, however, I think that in the mail below I offered some pretty compelling reasons why lists should be entries rather than turning feeds into lists. Could someone please comment on this? Is there some point that I'm completely missing? What is wrong with my suggestion that lists-are-entries is much more useful than the alternative? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-atom- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Wyman Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 5:10 PM To: 'Mark Nottingham' Cc: atom-syntax@imc.org Subject: RE: Top 10 and other lists should be entries, not feeds. Mark Nottingham wrote: Are you saying that when/if Netflix switches over to Atom, they shouldn't use it for the Queue? No. I'm saying that if Netflix switches over to Atom, what they should do is insert the Queue information, as a list, into a single entry within the feed. This will not only preserve the nature of Atom feeds as feeds but also allow NetFlix a number of new and potentially interesting opportunities for providing data to customers. Most important among these will be the ability to include multiple lists in the feed (i.e. in addition to the Queue, they could also include their Top 10 list as well as a set of recommendations based on user experience. They might even include a list of 10 most recent transactions on your account) Each list would be a distinct entry. To make life easier on aggregators, each entry type should probably use the same atom:id across versions. This allows the aggregators to discard earlier, now out of date entries. NetFlix would also be able to intermix information such as the Queue List with non-list entries. For instance, they might have a Message from NetFlix that they want to include in the feed or, they might include a series of movie reviews that were carefully selected for the specific user. Basically, by using entries for lists instead of converting the entire feed into a list, NetFlix is able to offer a much richer and much more satisfying experience to their users. The ability of Atom to carry both lists and non-lists as entries means that Atom is able to offer a much more flexible and powerful mechanism to NetFlix than can be had from the less-capable RSS V2.0 solution. I think that if I were NetFlix, I would want to have the opportunity to experiment with and find ways to exploit this powerful capability. The richer the opportunity for communications between NetFlix and their customers, the greater the opportunity they have to generate revenues. The alternative to using entries rather than feeds would be creating multiple feeds per user. That strikes me as a solution which is ugly on its face and unquestionably increases the complexity of the system for both NetFlix and its customers. The list-in-entry solution is much more elegant and much more powerful. bob wyman -- Mark Nottingham http://www.mnot.net/
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
It may very well be more useful, but we shouldn't mandate it in any way. Let people build whatever kind of applications they want with Atom. Bob Wyman wrote: Folks, I hate to be insistent, however, I think that in the mail below I offered some pretty compelling reasons why lists should be entries rather than turning feeds into lists. Could someone please comment on this? Is there some point that I'm completely missing? What is wrong with my suggestion that lists-are-entries is much more useful than the alternative? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Wyman Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 5:10 PM To: 'Mark Nottingham' Cc: atom-syntax@imc.org Subject: RE: Top 10 and other lists should be entries, not feeds. Mark Nottingham wrote: Are you saying that when/if Netflix switches over to Atom, they shouldn't use it for the Queue? No. I'm saying that if Netflix switches over to Atom, what they should do is insert the Queue information, as a list, into a single entry within the feed. This will not only preserve the nature of Atom feeds as feeds but also allow NetFlix a number of new and potentially interesting opportunities for providing data to customers. Most important among these will be the ability to include multiple lists in the feed (i.e. in addition to the Queue, they could also include their Top 10 list as well as a set of recommendations based on user experience. They might even include a list of 10 most recent transactions on your account) Each list would be a distinct entry. To make life easier on aggregators, each entry type should probably use the same atom:id across versions. This allows the aggregators to discard earlier, now out of date entries. NetFlix would also be able to intermix information such as the Queue List with non-list entries. For instance, they might have a Message from NetFlix that they want to include in the feed or, they might include a series of movie reviews that were carefully selected for the specific user. Basically, by using entries for lists instead of converting the entire feed into a list, NetFlix is able to offer a much richer and much more satisfying experience to their users. The ability of Atom to carry both lists and non-lists as entries means that Atom is able to offer a much more flexible and powerful mechanism to NetFlix than can be had from the less-capable RSS V2.0 solution. I think that if I were NetFlix, I would want to have the opportunity to experiment with and find ways to exploit this powerful capability. The richer the opportunity for communications between NetFlix and their customers, the greater the opportunity they have to generate revenues. The alternative to using entries rather than feeds would be creating multiple feeds per user. That strikes me as a solution which is ugly on its face and unquestionably increases the complexity of the system for both NetFlix and its customers. The list-in-entry solution is much more elegant and much more powerful. bob wyman
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
What is wrong with my suggestion that lists-are-entries is much more useful than the alternative? Bob: Well, off the top of my head... (1) If the lists are embedded as (X)HTML, then only aggregators that display markup will be able to do anything with them, and headline-only aggregators will be useless. (2) If the lists are embedded in a new extension of some sort, developers have to buy in to get even minimal functionality. Not so if the entries are list items... even a non-list-aware aggregator will be able to display *something*. (3) If the lists are embedded as (X)HTML, my options for re-sorting the list are somewhere between minimal and non-existent. In fact, the only benefit I can see (as a user) to lists-within-entries is the ability to easily archive the state of the list. But that's probably better left to aggregator developers to implement as a feature. -- Roger Benningfield
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
On 31 Aug 2005, at 6:22 pm, Roger B. wrote: (1) If the lists are embedded as (X)HTML, then only aggregators that display markup will be able to do anything with them, and headline-only aggregators will be useless. And damn those unthinking bloggers who embed their paragraphs as (X) HTML, because headline-only aggregators are useless for reading them. (2) If the lists are embedded in a new extension of some sort, developers have to buy in to get even minimal functionality. Not so if the entries are list items... even a non-list-aware aggregator will be able to display *something*. Who is advocating this? (3) If the lists are embedded as (X)HTML, my options for re-sorting the list are somewhere between minimal and non-existent. Fair point. In fact, the only benefit I can see (as a user) to lists-within-entries is the ability to easily archive the state of the list. But that's probably better left to aggregator developers to implement as a feature. Another feature is the list can be formatted properly XHTML, considerably improving legibly over a bunch of floating entries. Graham
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
* Graham [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005-08-31 20:40]: On 31 Aug 2005, at 6:22 pm, Roger B. wrote: (1) If the lists are embedded as (X)HTML, then only aggregators that display markup will be able to do anything with them, and headline-only aggregators will be useless. And damn those unthinking bloggers who embed their paragraphs as (X) HTML, because headline-only aggregators are useless for reading them. Straw man. These bloggers are embedding the content of a single entry in each single entry, not the content of a collection of entries. (2) If the lists are embedded in a new extension of some sort, developers have to buy in to get even minimal functionality. Who is advocating this? I don’t know about advocating, but it has been mentioned. Another feature is the list can be formatted properly XHTML, considerably improving legibly over a bunch of floating entries. Straw man. The onus for the legibility of an XHTML-formatted list lies with the publisher; for the entries-as-items list, it lies with the aggregator developer. I’m sorry if you aggregator developer can’t make a bunch of floating entries very readable. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // http://plasmasturm.org/
Re: The benefits of Lists are Entries rather than Lists are Feeds
Hi, A. Pagaltzis wrote: * Graham [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005-08-31 20:40]: Another feature is the list can be formatted properly XHTML, considerably improving legibly over a bunch of floating entries. Straw man. The onus for the legibility of an XHTML-formatted list lies with the publisher; for the entries-as-items list, it lies with the aggregator developer. I’m sorry if you aggregator developer can’t make a bunch of floating entries very readable. What is a floating entry? I have tried a search in the specs (IETF and .3) and google for: atom floating entry. No results or no relevent results. -Rob
