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Comment by troupo

3 months ago

> I am very sure the people at google are aware of the rss feed usage.

No. No they aren't. As you can see in the discussion: https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11523 where the engineer who proposed this literally updates his "analysis" as people point out use cases he missed.

Quote:

--- start quote ---

albertobeta: there is a real-world and modern use case from the podcasting industry, where I work. Collectively, we host over 4.5 million RSS feeds. Like many other podcast hosting companies, we use XSLT to beautify our raw feeds and make them easier to understand when viewed in a browser.

mfreed7, the Googler https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11523#issuecomment-315... : Thanks for the additional context on this use case! I'm trying to learn more about it.

--- end quote ---

And then just last week: https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11523#issuecomment-318...

--- start quote ---

Thanks for all of the comments, details, and information on this issue. It's clear that XSLT (and talk of removing it) strikes a nerve with some folks. I've learned a lot from the posts here.

--- end quote ---

> Don't confuse people disagreeing with you with people not understanding you.

Oh, they don't even attempt to understand people.

Here's him last week adding a PR to remove XSLT from the spec: https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/11563

Did he address any of the issues? Does he link to any actual research pointing out how much will be broken, where it's used etc.?

Nope.

But then another Googler pulls up, says "good work, don't forget to remove it everywhere else". End of discussion.

2 comments

troupo

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bawolff  3 months ago

I stand by my previous comment.

You're angry you didn't get your way, but the googler's decision seems logical, i think most software developers maintaining a large software platform would have made a similar decision given the evidence presented (as evidenced by other web browsers making the same one).

The only difference here between most software is that google operates somewhat in the open. In the corporate world there would be some customer service rep to shield devs from the special interest group's tantrum.