Scripting News is 30 years old

Last week, Dave Winer posted that Scripting News turned 30. That’s an amazing milestone and Dave’s still writing daily. 1994 seems like quite a while ago; the web was only 3 years old! I started blogging in 2003 on a personal domain and added this blog in 2005. I don’t write daily though and I tip my hat to Dave. His writing is also really really good.

Scripting News was the catalyst for the creation of RSS in 1997, one of my favourite technologies. I use it with NetNewsWire to keep up to date with independent writers who publish to their blogs regularly. It’s also used as the foundation for podcast syndication which allows me to use Overcast as my podcast player while others can use Apple Podcasts, Castro, Pocket Casts or whatever client they prefer.

I use NetNewsWire, but there are many other RSS readers too and this independence of client is a fundamental feature of RSS. While centralisation of client makes things easy, it doesn’t allow for the diversity of human needs. When my arthritis is at it worst, I struggle to use a mouse which significantly hampers my use of many apps. I have friends with eyesight problems where they need to use apps which do not allow control of the font size or the colour contrast. There are many other humans with many other challenges and those of us that live long enough will gain more challenges over time as our bodies age. RSS and other protocols such as ActivityPub as used by Mastodon democratise access to information and are vital as digital connections take over.

RSS one of the original web APIs and still going strong. That’s quite an achievement too.