Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: XML for weblogs

Author:Dan Lyke
Posted:2/12/1999; 10:48:47 AM
Topic:XML for weblogs
Msg #:2858 (In response to 2853)
Prev/Next:2857 / 2859

Jorn, I don't much care about browser clickability for that sort of thing. I'm automating more and more of my browsing. Scripts that'll do "HEAD"s on pages that update occasionally to tell me when they're changed. Scripts to query news sources and search engines and do keyword searches for me, stuff like that.

One application, for instance, is putting my dead-trees library in a database. I've got a Perl script that for incomplete records sends a search with the ISBN out to Amazon and fills in the appropriate fields. Given the difficulty of parsing the Amazon pages as used for layout (I've got 5 or 6 different forms, and those are derived by experiment), an XML-RPC query, or even just a CGI query that returned data in a slightly more structured form would be a much nicer way to go about this.

Browsers are okay display tools, but they're lousy for actually managing information. XML is a chance to let us start using the web for passing around information without all that layout crap that's infiltrated its way into HTML. If no browser ever displays it, I don't care, because my goal is to make computers less visible, taking care of more things behind my back.

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