RSS vs. checking file size?

[brett]

If I participate in a forum that doesn't have any way to watch threads
or any type of RSS, I could get the filesize of the thread I want to
watch. When the filesize changes, I know there is a new post. Are
there any reasons why this won't work?

If the above will work, how is it different from using RSS? Or can RSS
support just a regular page (no XML for RSS available)?

Thanks,
Brett

 

[clintonG]

Sure, checking file size is a crude hack that tells you something --
something completely unreliable -- for example if the page contains banner
ads for advertising or Google adwords what happens when the page is checked
and the page contains rotated images that weigh differently from one
another? What happens if one instance of the page displays five Google
adwords and another instance 10 Google adwords? Ooops. File size will not be
reliable for monitoring content.

As for the use of RSS the page itself would generally be syndicated as a web
feed by some process running on the server where the page exists. If you
wanted to screen scrape a page and then use RSS to syndicate the contents of
the scraped page as a web feed that can happen but again, its unreliable for
the purposes you infer as you still don't have reliable information about
the actual status of the contents of the page.


<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
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