Monday, August 10, 2015 at 7:55 AM

Dear podcast client developers...

You should be able to gracefully handle feeds in which only some of the items have enclosures.

Like the feed for this blog.

Suggested implementation: ignore them if your client really is only for listening to podcasts.

RSS is a medium that can transmit lots of different kinds of data. If you only care about one kind, just ignore the others. That's the philosophy of XML, as I understood it, when I developed the technology behind podcasting.

Keep on truckin!

PS: This post has a podcast attached, as a demo.

PPS: Another possibility, make it a preference setting for the user. Default to ignoring posts without enclosures, but make it easy for the user to override your choice.


Last built: Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 1:31 PM

By Dave Winer, Monday, August 10, 2015 at 7:55 AM. Good for the environment.