matt.wronka.org

It feels like it has been a long time since I ranted about the LiveJournal package/site/code. I'm not even clear what exactly it's doing, never having used it.

Jessica's web log is syndicated on 無, where I read pretty much everything. She decided to post several blog entries about the recently released Harry Potter book.

The first of which is captured in the RSS item:

<item>
<guid isPermaLink="true">
http://www.livejournal.com/users/paperclippy/390279.html
</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jul 2005 01:56:54 GMT</pubDate>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<link>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/paperclippy/390279.html
</link>
<description>
<a name="cutid1"></a><br />I knew, when I heard that someone important would die in this book, that it would be Dumbledore. But somehow, when it actually happened, it still surprised me. I can't imagine what could possibly be in book 7.<br /><br />I think this is the most depressing book so far. I don't know that if I had young children, I would want them to read it. And though I figured out that Dumbledore was going to die before opening the book, I didn't figure out that Snape was the half-blood prince until he said so, amazingly enough. I'm still not 100% sure whose side Snape was really on, despite the fact that he killed Dumbledore. It was just kind of weird. Did he do it because of the Unbreakable Vow or whatever? Or to save Draco? Or because he is actually evil? I can't help feeling like if Dumbledore trusted him so much, there must have been something worth trusting there. Oh well.<br /><br />After spending my entire day (okay, not the entire day, only about 10 hours) reading this book, I am left with a general feeling of ugh. I guess I had hoped for something a little more satisfying. Anyone have any idea who R.A.B. or whatever the initials were is?<br />
</description>
<comments>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/paperclippy/390279.html
</comments>
</item>

Or from the Atom feed (which Planet often has problems with):

<entry>
<title mode="escaped">Harry Potter</title>
<id>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:paperclippy:390279</id>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/paperclippy/390279.html"/>
<created>2005-07-18T01:56:54Z</created>
<issued>2005-07-17T14:55:00</issued>
<modified>2005-07-18T12:40:55Z</modified>
<author>
<name>Jessica</name>
</author>
<content type="text/html" mode="escaped">
<a name="cutid1"></a><br />I knew, when I heard that someone important would die in this book, that it would be Dumbledore. But somehow, when it actually happened, it still surprised me. I can't imagine what could possibly be in book 7.<br /><br />I think this is the most depressing book so far. I don't know that if I had young children, I would want them to read it. And though I figured out that Dumbledore was going to die before opening the book, I didn't figure out that Snape was the half-blood prince until he said so, amazingly enough. I'm still not 100% sure whose side Snape was really on, despite the fact that he killed Dumbledore. It was just kind of weird. Did he do it because of the Unbreakable Vow or whatever? Or to save Draco? Or because he is actually evil? I can't help feeling like if Dumbledore trusted him so much, there must have been something worth trusting there. Oh well.<br /><br />After spending my entire day (okay, not the entire day, only about 10 hours) reading this book, I am left with a general feeling of ugh. I guess I had hoped for something a little more satisfying. Anyone have any idea who R.A.B. or whatever the initials were is?<br />
</content>
</entry>

Now, this post has very little to do with the author of the web log herself, and everything to do with the syndication engine in LiveJournal. I'll ignore RSS because I think it is not very good. Atom, specifically, though provides a measure for having both summary and content made available. The issue is that there appears to be different text in different views than in the entry in question. In fact, if you look at the correct views, you can see the spoiler warning. Other cases you do not. It would seem that in the case of atom, the one view should be the summary, whereas the other should be the content. In RSS, if there is different content, and only one feed, it seems to make sense that the feed provide the summary.

Why the LiveJournal engine does not include the other text in syndication, I do not know. It seems broken to me, but perhaps somebody who is more familiar with the LiveJournal system could explain it to me.