ATOM Feeds vs. RSS Feeds

Update: If you got here from James McGovern's blog, you should read this as well.

OK, Mr. Process Perfection (and File Net user) Mark Masterson has responded to my anti-standards screed, and raises some interesting ideas. Instead of following the RSS hype, skip to ATOM for an ECM standard. I have to say, ATOM plus the REST-based ATOM Publishing Protocol is an interesting idea. If only I didn't dislike REST so much I might endorsed it.

But I still sense danger for these reasons:

• A resource-oriented interface to an enterprise content management repository may not be the best approach... especially when you need to do things like workflows, subscriptions, conversion, multiple taxonomies, or basic business process management. You need a service-oriented interface that focuses on the action, not the back-end implementation. See my anti REST rant for more info.
• The response that search doesn't matter, and to just "Use Google" to find content is beyond glib... using Google means losing metadata. Instead, the interface should make it brain-dead easy to discover lists of items based on metadata, as well as "related content" in nice little buckets. If we're just going to kick metadata in the head, we might as well just use ZFS over iSCSI, and call it good.
• I can't say for certain yet, but I'd suspect it would be tricky to embed multiple content items in one feed item, as well as binary data... Can APP be used to "chunk" files larger larger than 2GB? Since APP is so resource-based, what if I want a batch check-in of multiple resources for better performance? What about syndicating secure data out of the repository? Again, I sense danger...

For the record, its wasn't tough to get Stellent to output RSS feeds. That only took a few hours... What was a royal pain was discovering how rotten most RSS readers are, and trying to tweak the output just right so that everybody could consume it.

Switching to ATOM may be a tiny bit tougher because it supports more metadata... its an obvious replacement for RSS, but I think a few more pieces need to be added to the "ATOM Stack" before it could do as much as WebDAV. Search, specifically... and I'd push towards a service-oriented publishing model.

Regarding the security layer... you could "punt" and rely on wacky XCAML/SAML, but that just seems to complicate things beyond necessity... and that ain't good for anybody except security consultants. A simpler idea would be an ATOM and LDAP Mashup, and make every single resource identity aware. If done right, you can authenticate with the enterprise LDAP server, and authorize with the department's federated LDAP server. Seems pretty simple to me...

And thanks Mark, for not turning this into a Nerd Fight.