19962013
Don't do that!!!!
Scripting News: "...so many people are using RSS the wrong way."
Dave knows this, and I think understand his angst exactly, but for you users out there, here's a secret about what makes the builders tick:
Dave knows this, and I think understand his angst exactly, but for you users out there, here's a secret about what makes the builders tick:
We hate it when you damned users don't use our stuff in the way we intended you to.
The guy that made the table knife hates it when you use it as a screwdriver.
The guy that made the screwdriver hates it when you use it to pry open paint cans.
The guy that made shopping carts hates it when you hop in them and ride them down hills.
The guy that made the screwdriver hates it when you use it to pry open paint cans.
The guy that made shopping carts hates it when you hop in them and ride them down hills.
And definitely, the guy that made RSS hates it when you use it in such a structured, serial, oh-so-totally-organized way.
Which is totally cool.
If I'd invented RSS, I'd hate the way you use it too. And that's because deep down inside, no matter how open our stuff is, we're control freaks that love watching users use our stuff within the boundaries of the limits we set forth.
And when you don't, no matter how pleasing the outcome, we're totally bugged out (and probably beaming from ear-to-ear) that someone isn't conforming to the rules that our little stupid little experiment tries its hardest to enforce.
Conform damyou! 
See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.
2 comments
Comments are closed - these are kept exactly as they were left.
(name not saved), November 21, 2004
If we only used RSS in the way Winer wanted us to it wouldn't be what it is today. The reason it is popular is because of the different ways its being consumed.
What can possibly be wrong with this?
Dave has such a huge ego that he thinks that everyone would want to use an aggregator like he does. Well, simply put, he is 100% incorrect. I turfed the Radio Userland aggregator because it is extremely inefficient in the way that I read my RRS feeds.
(name not saved), November 22, 2004
Nah - you're being too harsh. There's a tiny little control freak inside every person who ever created something. Dave's just more verbal about it than the rest of us :-)
I hate it when people do stuff that I didn't plan for with the stuff I release as well...its very cool and all, and it usually makes me smile, but I wish that people would use the service for what I intended it to be used for :)