[Rets-dev] Google Base Housing vs. RETS

[Paul Stusiak]

I'll second everything Dan says about Atom.

I am familiar with the RSS standards and have worked with them. Atom, 
while not perfect, is a huge improvement over the mess that is syndication.

Also the book is pretty good and is available in pdf form as well.

Paul
Falcon Technologies Corp.

Dan Woolley wrote:
> To keep the RETS standard effort in perspective, let's compare some of 
> what we're discussing with the popular newsfeed standards RSS and 
> Atom.  These are standards that the broader industry is working on, 
> including the IETF, and that are generally seen as easy to use and 
> accessible.  I'd also say that they have a simpler mission than RETS.
>  
> RSS started in 1999, and today there are 9 incompatible versions 
> (forks and flavors).  All RSS clients need to deal with most of the 9, 
> since hosts use whichever flavor they feel like, and toolkits need to 
> abstract away the funkiness.  Sound familiar?  I'd say that 
> abstracting away the interpretations or forks of a standard of any 
> complexity is the norm rather than the exception.
>  
> Enter Atom, a fresh design based on existing HTTP and XML specs to 
> eliminate all the complexity of what came before.  Atom was started in 
> 2003, joined with the IETF in 2004, and released as RFC-4287 in 2005.  
> The intent was that by learning from the past, including all the right 
> people, basing it on modern day and widely used technology, and 
> creating carefully worded and complete specs, they would create a 
> better protocol.  Sound familiar?  I'm no expert*, but it looks to me 
> like Atom is an improvement.  I also know that the various RSS flavors 
> will all be around for another half decade.
>  
> Point is, it takes time and momentum to improve and release a new 
> spec.  If it took the Atom group 3 or 4 years to get from inception to 
> public use, I'd imagine it will take our group just as long or 
> longer.  A lot of this is due to the volunteer nature of the groups, 
> some due to politics, and some due to constructive public discussion 
> and debate.  I think things are fine, as long as we keep up the momentum.
>  
>  
> * Check out "RSS and Atom In Action" by Dave Johnson 
> <http://www.manning.com/dmjohnson/>.  Highly recommended.  Goes beyond 
> simple feed readers and into the future of content syndication, which 
> is something affecting our vertical right now.
>  
>  
> Dan Woolley
> Senior VP of Technology
> www.eneighborhoods.com <http://www.eneighborhoods.com>
>  
>  
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