Last week Tim Bray writes on his weblog I recently proposed to the IETF Atom Working Group that we might be nearly finished. Some people think that’s a mistake because, as they point out, Atom doesn’t have much more in the way of features than RSS.
He goes on to explain why he disagrees and relates the Atom work to his work on XML itself.
He concludes with an excellent observation that all standards groups should heed.
The worst thing the Atom WG could possibly do would be to spend another year or two trying to invent wonderful new syndication goodies. What on earth would give us the idea that we’re smart enough to predict what features the world is going to want? Our job is to write down what we already know works, to do it as cleanly and clearly as possible in as few pages as possible, then get out of the way.
You don’t think this can change the world? Just watch.
<p>Last week Tim Bray <a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/11/11/AtomInnovation">writes on his weblog</a> <q>I recently proposed to the <a href="http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/atompub-charter.html">IETF Atom Working Group</a> that we <a href="http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDeclareVictoryOnFormat">might be nearly finished</a>. Some people think that’s a mistake because, as they point out, Atom doesn’t have much more in the way of features than RSS.</q> He goes on to explain why he disagrees and relates the Atom work to his work on XML itself.</p>
<p>He concludes with an excellent observation that all standards groups should heed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The worst thing the Atom WG could possibly do would be to spend another year or two trying to invent wonderful new syndication goodies. What on earth would give us the idea that we’re smart enough to predict what features the world is going to want? Our job is to write down what we already know works, to do it as cleanly and clearly as possible in as few pages as possible, then get out of the way.</p>
<p>You don’t think this can change the world? Just watch.</p>
</blockquote>
