Scripting News: What is codecasting?

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Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

What is codecasting?

Have a look at this feed...

http://bits.codecasting.org/opml.root/rss.xml

It's got enclosures, like a podcasting feed, but instead of linking to MP3 files, it links to bits of code.

Seems like a rational next step. The code updating process for the OPML Editor is based on XML-RPC, as was the process for Radio and Frontier, but it's always been possible to turn it into an entirely static process. Now that I'm doing a sweep over my servers, trying to reduce the cost of running them, and at the same time make them more durable, I put it on my to-do list, and posted a heads-up a few days ago, that I was planning something new (at least for me) with RSS.

BTW, the parts that the feed links to are real, they really do contain code, it reflects all the part updates for the OPML Editor since it shipped in the summer of 2005. I haven't yet written code that interprets the feed, that receives updates from it, so there may yet be changes in the approach. But in the spirit of sharing my work in progress, here it is. ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:30 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

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