The Haaretz RSS feeds give me the most trouble out of all of my RSS feeds. They have not been working for the last few weeks, since Haaretz implemented site registration. While it occurs to me that I suggested such a move (oops), it makes generating RSS feeds much more difficult (the Perl script would have to use cookies or something).
This may come as a shock to some of you, but I do not, in the immediate future, plan on fixing them. My excuses, in order of reasonableness:
- Haaretz already has Hebrew RSS feeds. If, like me, you cannot read Hebrew, know that I contacted the head of Haaretz's Online Division, Elihay Vidal, who assured me that English-language RSS feeds would be "available soon."
- The scripts that grab the RSS feeds are written in Perl. I do not like Perl, and the idea of modifying a script to deal with Haaretz' online registration system does not really appeal to me.
- I am in a bad mood.
Yes, I fully realize those are stupid excuses:
- How long is "soon?"
- Nobody cares what programming language you use to write the scripts. Use Python if you feel like it.
- Bad moods pass.
Assuming "soon" means longer than two weeks, I will probably get around to modifying the scripts, although the above lists should have made it clear that I am not looking forward to it.
# At 16:53 on July 29, 2005, D'vi wrote:
Shabbat Shalom and I thank you for working quickly to improve this situation. I read HaAretz everyday, and just recently put it in my front page when I open up in the morning. So...again thank you for YOUR quick responce to this problem and bringing us the news from our homeland. Blessings v'SHALOM! D'vi
# At 23:42 on July 29, 2005, Martey wrote:
Thanks for your message; knowing that people are using the RSS feeds helps. Fixing it (because, yes, the feeds are fixed) actually was easier than I expected. I could not get the Perl scripts to "register" with Haaretz properly, so I eventually just grabbed my registration cookie from Firefox.
# At 8:07 on July 31, 2005, Dan wrote:
Thanks for working on the RSS feed for so long. I just wanted you to know im one of the guys who used it :)
keep up the good work
# At 22:56 on October 25, 2005, MarteyDodoo.com wrote:
Deprecation!
...