Posted by Tom Moertel
Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:51:00 GMT
If you’re reading my blog via Bloglines, you
may have noticed that some of my posts look terrible, especially when
they contain code snippets. I am sorry for that, but it’s not my
fault. Bloglines doesn’t handle white space properly.
Here’s the more detailed explanation. When you request one of my
feeds in, say, Atom format, you get back a bunch of XML that contains
the most-recent posts from my blog. Each post is represented as
lovingly crafted HTML, escaped per the Atom specs. When Bloglines
gets its hands on this very same HTML, it attempts to scrub it nice
and clean – get rid of any naughty bits, you know. And there’s
nothing wrong with that. Except when the scrubbing goes horribly,
horribly wrong. Which is exactly what happens when Bloglines
encounters perfectly legitimate markup that represents
syntax-highlighted code snippets.
What does Bloglines do then? It strips out all of the significant white
space, turning each block of code into a single, mile-long,
unbreakable line of NoSpaceText that forces your web browser to expand
the page until it is wide enough to enshroud a small solar system. Then
you are forced to scroll forever to read each line of the text
column. Ugg.
More specifically, each syntax-highlighted code block is
represented in HTML as a preformatted (PRE) text block.
Each word in that block is wrapped in a SPAN element
whose class attribute indicates the word’s role in the
original source code. Keywords get one
class, identifiers another, and so on. For example,
the code “import List” might be represented
as follows:
<span class="kwd">import</span> <span class="name">List</span>
But when Bloglines gets its hands on that markup, it strips
out the whitespace between the SPAN elements:
<span class="kwd">import</span><span class="name">List</span>
Thus the markup renders as “importList” when it hits your web
browser. Now imagine the same space-denuding bad behavior applied to
all of the inter-element white space in a full-length block of code.
That’s right, what you end up with is a single, insanely long
LineOfUnbreakableText that your web browser chokes on. Again:
Ugg.
The folks at Bloglines have had similar problems in the past, most of which have been fixed. I hope they fix this particular problem soon, too.
Until that time, however, you might want to consider other feed readers.
Posted in rants
Tags atom, bloglines, html, markup, rants, xml
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Posted by Tom Moertel
Tue, 14 Feb 2006 02:26:00 GMT
Recently I visited Amazon.com and was assaulted by a fat stream of
marketing blurbs. Amazon tried to convince me that I was actually
enjoying an innovative blog written by my favorite authors, each trying
to “connect” with me, but I found the attempt to be shallow and
annoying. To me, it was still a fat stream of marketing
blurbs.
And what do the marketing wizards at Amazon call this blurb stream? Your Plog.
Amazon explains it like this:
Your Plog. Your Amazon.com Plog is a personalized web log
that appears on your customer home page. Every person’s Plog is
different (hence the name) and just like a blog, your Plog is sorted
in reverse chronological order. Each post also gives you the
opportunity to provide feedback to the sender as to whether you liked
the post or not. This feedback loop means your Plog becomes even more
relevant and interesting over time. Your Plog will appear if you are
logged into our web site and is visible only to you.
I explain it like this:
Your Plog. Amazon.com thinks you want your time and attention
delivered to every guy who wrote a book that you somehow indicated
interest in. You don’t. Your favorite authors already have blogs,
and you already subscribe to the ones you care about. As a result,
Your Plog contains nothing but stuff you don’t care about and stuff
you might have cared about, had you not read it five times already
from other sources. It is an annoying waste of your time and
attention, foisted on you by the ravenous marketing weasels at
Amazon.com.
For example, whenever the Pragmatic guys come out with a new book on
Ruby or Rails, I hear about it from Andy Hunt’s blog, Dave Thomas’s
blog, the Riding Rails blog, emails from Andy, ruby-talk postings
from Dave, and now – thanks to “my” Plog – Amazon’s home page.
(In fact, my Plog contains no fewer than three blurbs from the
Pragmatic guys – all stuff I have seen before. I like the Pragmatic
Programmers and think Andy and Dave are good guys, but I don’t see what
they gain by being associated with Amazon’s Plog-based marketing.)
Other takes on the Plog
Here’s what other people are writing about Plogs. From Changing
Way:
When I go to amazon.com these days, I’m shown a “plog.” What
does this ugly term mean? It told that it denotes a weblog
personalized to me. What it turns out to be is a blog by someone I
bought a book from years ago. I’ve nothing against this person or her
book. Neither do I think that her blog is bad. It’s just not of
interest to me, and so doesn’t belong on Amazon’s home page, or on
my “personalized” version of it.
From FactoryCity comes a post entitled Ohmifrog, Amazon, cut it out!
And here’s my gripe: a “plog™” – if that’s really the best you
could come up with – and if it’s supposed to inherit
anything from its “blog” heritage – should be about
original authorship, not about having other people’s content thrown at
you.
Amy Gahran has a more analytical consideration of Plogs in Amazon ‘Plogs’ – What Do You Think?:
I think the idea of plogs may have great potential for
relationship-building, if implemented carefully and with an eye toward
timeliness and relevance. But frankly, this Amazon implementation
feels off-base to me so far…. Well, [an author’s participating in
Plogging] could be terrific or terrible, depending on the content
quality and relevance [of the author’s contributions].
Bingo. That’s why Amazon’s Plog concept will remain more annoying
than useful. Authors do not want Amazon to own what they consider
to be their conversations, and thus the Plog will be used as
little more than a marketing mailing list.
Authors do not want Amazon to own the conversation
It’s the quality of the conversation that counts, and smart authors
will not want their conversations to be confined to Amazon. Instead,
they will set up their own sites where they can have greater freedom
and greater control. That’s where the authors will open themselves to
honest conversation, and that’s where the best stuff will occur.
Amazon’s Plogs will get the scraps – bits of the real conversation
that have been converted into marketing blurbs and pushed down the
Plog channel. In fact, it already seems to be going that way: a lot
of “posts” in my Plog appear to have been recycled from real blogs or
web sites.
Amazon, count me out
Even though my immediate reaction to discovering “my” Plog was mild
disgust, I did try to give it a chance. After having given it a week
to grow on me, I am convinced that I want nothing to do with my Plog.
It wastes my time and attention and gives me little in return.
Did Amazon Plog you yet? If so, what do you think?
Posted in marketing, rants
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