LaughingMeme: A lot of concern, hand wringing and advice on RSS bandwidth issues lately. (see Regular Sucking Schedule, and HowTo RSS Feed State for a sample). Here's some more.
Randy: Another misleading RSS bandwidth article. Here's some highlights.
LaughingMeme: skipHours (and co.), ttl, and mod_syndication are all considered harmful. They're all under specified, highly ambiguous, poorly supported, poorly implemented, and move logic into the file which should be (and is) in the protocol.
Randy: How do skipHours, ttl and mod_syndication actually do harm? Obviously they don't. In fact, many RSS readers support them, which means you will incur benefit from their use.
LaughingMeme: Rule of thumb, if your bandwidth saving mechanism is in your feed, it's a mistake. They promise false hopes of salvation, ignore them.
Randy: Thanks for not given any reason for this wives' tale.
LaughingMeme: Rather look to: Conditional GET, GZIP encoding, ....
Randy: Agreed.
LaughingMeme: Rather look to: RFC 3229 aka HTTP deltas.
Randy: I don't know any RSS readers that support RFC 3229. Anybody? In conclusion, the author seems to be telling the user not to use techniques that are supported by RSS readers in favor of techniques that are not supported by RSS readers. I suggest, you implement all the strategies I suggest in my little HowTo RSS Feedstate article. Each will save a bit and together they'll save a bunch.
