From the comments on one of my recent posts, here's a perfect example of the challenge of explaining technology. I'd provided a set of links for subscribing to my site.
From "AbC":
I hate something about this whole feed business. I see techies falling over themselves trying to use the simplest possible language to help the rest of us understand what feeds really are and how they work. It's like a lot of people dumb down the definitions and try to use terms they think we'll understand and be able to internalize.Hell no.
Tell me exactly how these things work ... tell me a feed is like an HTML file that has the address/URL of where a site's latest content is posted and that you can specify exactly how you want to see the new content - snippets or full blow-by-blow.
I maybe wrong ... because techies are really muffling the real definitions with their softened, purpotedly easy to understand definitions.
I think AbC's wrong. Here's why, courtesy of Joanne:
Thanks for posting this. I've heard of RSS before, but it all seemed like black magic until I tried out bloglines. Your post inspired me to get started!
No offense, but somehow I find the argument (and potential readership) of the Joannes of the world more compelling.
I am (arguably) a techie, and it took me a long damn time to understand what was so great about syndication. I understood the technology quite well, it's really not very difficult to, but no matter how it was explained to me I just couldn't see what was so great about it until I was bored at work one day and signed up at Bloglines. I think any feedreader will demonstrate, but with Bloglines it takes about 30 seconds to subscribe to a feed.
It's entirely and completely my preferred way of interacting with the web now, and in a way I couldn't have conceived of before just trying it.
AbC also makes the mistake of equating an example, albeit a common one, with a definition. Hir explanation sounds okay on the surface, but is itself misleading:
Everything in RSS2.0 items is optional except either a title or description; a single link is required back to the main site hosting the feed. As far as I can tell, an Atom feed can be perfectly valid with no date information whatsoever, so there's not necessarily any time context. Even "latest" is an assumption, once you look at it; I can generate a feed for a two year-old monthly archive.
Yes, I'm nitpicking, but that's what you get when you ask to be told "exactly" how something works. The odd bits start appearing, and you end up with a conversation, especially when you're dealing with as many format possibilities as there are with feeds. If you want a quick blurb, then a certain amount of abstraction is required, and that's fine as long as it remains accurate(or just full-on automagic). Most people don't care about or want to know the gory details. I personally think it's the responsibility of the curious to ask or research themselves. (Isn't that that what defines them as curious?)
Sometimes the concept of feeds doesn't even make sense to the more technically inclined amongst us. I remember seeing Slashdot's RDF feed way back in the day and honestly wondering what anyone would ever want to do with it. I knew exactly what the file was and exactly what it contained. But it wasn't until I first found an RSS reader a few years later that the concept clicked for me.
Anil says ... "No offense, but .."
Sure, even though my readership is not compelling, let me take this opportunity to try and be civil.
(and perhaps try to get in the last word edgewise :)
I was not addressing you when I wrote what I wrote. I was certainly not clubbing you with the 'techies' I was complaining against. I see you at a higher level - as the gracious host of a forum where people like me can come, learn some and express their peeves with stuff that doesn't sound right.
That said, let me prove my point ... Here's what the Six Apart site has to say about an XML feed ..
What Is an XML Feed?
Despite the geeky technical names, feeds are very simple. They're just small files, much like a web page. Feeds have a special format that lets you collect information from a wide variety of sites and display the updates all in one place, as they happen.
Most feeds are offered for free, to encourage you to read the site that publishes them, or so you'll click on the links in the feed. Almost any information that's updated regularly is a good candidate for being offered as a feed.
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Ok, so I know what it does, but how does it really work??
It's as simple as picking up the phone and punching the numbers. Then there's a little guy with a green hat in the phone exchange who'll plug your line into the other one. Presto.
Big thanks to Su, who has actually defined some of the tech stuff. Like clearing the misconception that there need be no time context. Big thanks.
I struggled some and figured this out. A feed is a Link to an XML 'Index' page that indexes the interesting stuff people want you to get off their websites - the stuff could be text posts or podcasts or anything else. The index sits on the same server as your stuff (or does it?).
Feedreaders are special software that go read indeces and and collect the things people've listed in the index ... so to dumb it down ... it's like automated, selective, user-initiated browsing.
Why XML? Because XML is compatible with a whole lot more platforms than HTML. That's the very purpose of XML (or is it?).
That's my understanding. And Su, you are right. My curiousity is my problem. Should or should I not voice it in what I think are public forums?
AbC: Absolutely. Voicing your curiosity was half my point. Ask and someone will almost certainly tell you.
But the other half is that Joanne represents the overwhelming majority or readership: it's not important to them. They just want the stupid feed.
Not only do they not care about this stuff, but they probably wouldn't read it if it were out there, and would possibly even leave before reaching the information they really need. It just takes up space.
"Automated, selective, user-initiated browsing" is more accurate than your original description, but is simultaneously getting so vague—necessarily—as to not mean anything without diving right back into the tech details again. (Tell somebody that XML is just a language for defining other languages[derived from SGML, which is also a language for defining languages] and watch their eyes glaze over.)
Scott kind of hints at another problem: For various reasons, the feed situation itself has only recently started to get simple enough to even try and come up with an easy description. This will give you a taste of what it was like a few years ago. They're a relatively new concept, especially for mass consumption, and still have a fair number of kinks.