15.2. Working with RSS and Atom

Time-sensitive content on the Internet is spread through what we call web feeds or syndication feeds or simply feeds. These are usually in a format that is some dialect of XML.

Probably the most common of these formats is RSS. This is an abbreviation for Rich Site Summary (or RDF Site Summary, according to some, where RDF itself means Resource Description Format).

So many things on the Web are temporary or transient. Blog entries, zine articles, and many more things are recognized as being short-term in nature. A web feed is a natural way to distribute or syndicate such things.

The Atom format is another popular format that many people say is superior. The trend now is not to think in terms of “an RSS feed” or ...

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