Subject: Using Atom for a software update feed - syntax advice?

From: Jim Correia <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 14:40:39 -0500

First, a background question. So that I understand things correctly,  
a typical weblog which provides full content and an excerpt in the  
feed would use

atom:summary - exceprt
atom:content - full entry
atom:link[rel=alternate] - link to web page representation

Is that correct?

I'm considering using atom to represent that data for a the software  
update engine built into an application I am writing.  On the one  
hand, the primary use for the feed is going to be automated  
consumption by the application, so the exact details of that format  
don't matter. But I'd like to get it right, and have the feed useful  
to feed readers, not just my automated software update checker.

I'd like to have a summary of the release, full release notes, and  
the tarball for the software. My original thoughts where

atom:summary - summary
atom:content or atom:link[rel=alternate] - full release notes
atom:link[rel=enclosure] - tarball package

But then I read James Snell's article at

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-atom10.html

His podcasting example uses enclosures. His photo and software update  
examples uses non-text atom:content elements to represent the data.

Which is the conceptually more correct approach here? Which is the  
more practical approach? (Working with off the shelf feed readers  
would be desirable.)

Thanks,
Jim

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From: James M Snell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:07:30 -0800

All of the feedback I received on that article pointed to a preference
of using enclosure links for the software update feed, rather than the
content element.

Jim Correia wrote:
>[snip]
> I'd like to have a summary of the release, full release notes, and the
> tarball for the software. My original thoughts where
> 
> atom:summary - summary

This is good.

You might also want to consider taking a look at the Link Extensions
draft I put together.  It's purely experimental at this point, but may
include some useful ideas.

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-snell-atompub-link-extensions-02.txt

---

From: Jim Correia <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:23:07 -0500

> of using enclosure links for the software update feed, rather than the

Thanks. I didn't know what the prior art here was with Atom. RSS 2.0  
based software update feeds are using the enclosure element (which  
seems like the only real choice there.)

In your article you also give an example of a photo feed with the  
photos in the content element. Was there any preference for using  
links there as well and putting something else in the content? Is  
there prior art here?

Jim