Re: This & That Contest

Randy Morin wrote:
> James,
> You know the issue better than anybody. I'd love you to pick my blog
> entry apart, so that I get it perfect.

First, let me just say that I think the basic concept is pretty solid, 
before I start nitpicking. :)

Nitpick #1: I think it would have made things easier for testers if you had 
used different text for your second example that made it clearer what it was 
meant to be, for example: "The & entity" rather than "This & that". 
With essentially the same text being used in four different fields in four 
different examples, it's going to get very confusing.

Nitpick #2: Your description of the different kinds of encoding kind of 
glosses over some of the issues. When you're single encoding, you're using 
XML which allows CDATA sections in addtion to the numeric character 
references and named entity references that you mentioned. When you're 
double encoding, you first use HTML encoding (which is subtly different) and 
only XML encode in the second step.

The reason I bring this up is because some aggregators have problems dealing 
with certains forms of encodings, both XML and HTML. The format you choose 
*will* have an effect on the results you get. That said, what you have 
should work well enough to determine which aggregators generally double 
decode, and which don't.

Nitpick #3: I'm not convinced that the server tests are going to unearth all 
the buggy servers. I don't have much data on this, but I have anecdotal 
evidence that suggests at least some servers will quite happily single 
encode an ampersand, but will double encode other characters (usually 
foreign characters or quote characters). I think what you have is a good 
start though.

Nitpick #4: I suspect some servers won't let you publish test 2 at all 
(they'll automatcially convert the & to & when publishing). It may be 
worth reminding people to check what the published entry looks like on the 
webpage itself before submitting the data in the RSS feed. If the webpage 
isn't correct, then the data from the feed is meaningless.

Nitpick #5: The links to tests 3 and 4 are wrong.

All complaints aside, I think the results from these tests will be 
informative. I have a fair idea how most aggregators will behave, but I'm 
curious to see the results you get from various blogging platforms.

Regards
James



 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-public/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-public/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:[email protected]

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/