MT supports your support of ETags/If-Modified-Since
With version 2.51, Movable Type only overwrites a file when the content has changed. What does that mean to you? If someone adds a comment or a TrackBack, the index files, including your RSS feed(s), are rebuilt, so that the comment count will be updated. But if you aren’t putting the comment count in your RSS feed (most people don’t), then before 2.51 MT would save a new copy of your feed anyway, and so when a well-behaved RSS aggregator came by asking for your feed only if it was modified since the last date it got, or only if the ETag (just a string your server makes up, that changes whenever the file changes) has changed, your server would give them a nice fresh copy of your same old feed, running up your bandwidth bill and slowing down their aggregator. Now your server will be able to tell whether anything’s changed.
and there was much rejoicing. yay.
(finally, a post related to rss that i sort of understand! would phil like to point me in the direction of some good introductory articles on the subject of rss so nick can read phil’s page without a dumb look on nick’s face? third person confuses me. i mean nick. wait, nick means nick. sorry.)
Hrm. I’ll have to think on it, and maybe try to write it myself: I’m not sure that there is an introduction to RSS for webloggers that covers it as it’s mostly used these days (most articles on RSS will go on and on about how it’s for syndication, allowing other websites to publish the titles or titles and excerpts of your posts, linked to the full entry, when in fact it’s mostly used by webloggers as a way to either see that you’ve updated and whether or not they want to read your newest entry, or if you publish the full text of your posts as a way to read your site without having to load the whole HTML page all the time. In your case, since the HTML is a huge part of the site, you would probably want to be publishing just excerpts of your posts, enough for a reader to tell whether you’ve put up a redesign that they should go admire or not. And that’s probably long enough for a parenthetical aside.).
I think a Phil’s Guide to RSS would be great. Good time to write one too.
Another project that needs doing, desperately, a comprehensive set of test cases for aggregators and a list of aggregators and which tests they pass or fail.
In my dreams this would be a Phil-Mark-Sam collaboration.
And for the third and most complicated one, a guide to translating from 1.0 to 0.9x/2.0 and back, probably actually two, one for producers and one for aggregator developers.
The good news is that I’ve got the day off today. The bad news is that it’s because my Rube Goldberg water supply (both systems, from a well and from a spring) is fubar’d, and I’m off to the plumbing supply store instead of sitting down to write.
Phil, where do you live, and what do you do for a living? How about a picture?
Also, another dream. A RSS-Vendor mail list, only for developers who make tools and aggregators. Users not allowed. Not sure if it should be open or private (it would be private to keep the discussion informal and possibly friendly, no press releases). There needs to be a place to bring proposals to the industry. Yeah it sounds weird to think of it that way, but it’s starting to feel that way.
that’s what i thought…someone needs to write one. because i’ve looked for one before, and they don’t really say anything. ”this is an RSS document. look at all the acronyms! the end.” so i’m led to believe that this whole RSS thing is just a big practical joke. it doesn’t even exist.
but what the hell do i know?
MT2.51 Reduce el consumo de ancho de banda
MT2.51 Reduce el consumo de ancho de banda. Pequeño bug en el paquete de actualización de MT2.51. Nuevos colores de diveintomark.