Q&A
Q |
What’s the difference between RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom? |
A |
RSS 1.0 is a syndication format that employs the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to describe items in the feed. RSS 2.0 shares a common origin with RSS 1.0 but does not make use of RDF. Atom is another syndication format that was created after the preceding two formats and has been adopted as an Internet standard by the IETF. All three formats are suitable for offering web content in XML that can be read with a reader such as Bloglines or My Yahoo or read by software and stored, manipulated, or transformed. |
Q |
Why is Extensible Markup Language called XML instead of EML? |
A |
None of the founders of the language appears to have documented the reason for choosing XML as the acronym. The general consensus in the XML community is that it was chosen because it “sounds cooler” than EML. Before anyone snickers at that distinction, Sun Microsystems chose the name Java for its programming language using the same criteria, turning down more technical-sounding alternatives such as DNA and WRL. There is a possibility that the founders of XML were trying to avoid confusion with a programming language called EML (Extended Machine Language), which predates Extensible Markup Language. |