I've posted the initial notes for Syndication: RSS, ATOM, OPML, and All That. This session focuses on explaining RSS and ATOM to software developers (as opposed to content authors). In other words, it delves into the nitty gritty of how these systems work, and explains how to write software that generates and consumes feeds. I presented this lecture in my XML class at Polytechnic Thursday night. I was planning it for about 90 minutes, but I think it might need more like three hours to really do justice to the material. I didn't even get into the section on the Atom Publishing Protocol.
Hopefully I'll have an opportunity or two to develop this session further, and present it at some conferences and user groups over the coming year. Drop me an e-mail if you'd like me to talk to your user group, company, or conference about this. In fact, it occurs to me that there might be some interest in this at some conferences that aren't specifically focused on XML: e.g. web conferences, Ruby conferences, PHP conferences, etc. The technology is pretty important and fairly language and platform agnostic. if you hear of any Calls for Proposals for conferences that might be interested in a session or two on this subject, especially conferences that are willing to pay speakers, please drop me a line. Thanks.
Speaking of conferences, I've updated the conferences page with dates and info for Extreme Markup Languages 2006 (August 7-11 in Montreal) and XML 2006 (November 13-17 in Seattle). I probably won't be at Extreme this year. I'm thinking I may go to XML 2006 though. I'm up in the air about XTech 2006 (May 16-19, Amsterdam). These are all good shows, but they pay bupkus; so it's difficult to justify going to all three every year. I will definitely be at Software Development West 2006 in Santa Clara in March though.
