This site does have a RSS
file. It's called feed.xml
and is rather crude;
It's basically a sitemap.xml in RSS format with some added descriptions.
And where the sitemap is (mostly) ordered alphabetically by URL, the RSS
file is reverse ordered by last modified date: So the most recent file is
always at the top of the list.
This also means that if just a comma changes in a file, it automatically
moves to the top of the list. As if it were a completely new file!
Unlike the sitemap it only contains pages that were modified in the last
week. Unless this is less than 15 entries. In which case it contains the
15 most recent modified pages.
Just like the sitemap, feed.xml is automatically updated every morning. So
feed.xml changes at most once a day.
It may also stay the same for months on end. After all, this site is not
a newspaper. Nor is it a blog.
So the RSS file is just a list of the most recent changes.
Alternatively, you may want to check the Recent changes
page on a regular basis. This page contains more information than the RSS
feed.
Of course, if this pages changes, it shows up the the RSS Feed as well.
Pages that routinely change on a daily basis, such as statistics, are
excluded from the RSS feed. And so is this page.
The language of this channel is British English, so Dutch pages are
excluded as well.
If you access this site using HTTPS instead of HTTP, you will be
(permanently) redirected from 'feed.xml' to 'https-feed.xml';
The first contains HTTP links and the second HTTPS links. Apart from that,
they are perfectly identical.
This website doesn't favour one over the other. That's up to you. But if
you access this site using HTTPS, everything consistently stays HTTPS.
Which is probably what you want.
This behaviour however, may confuse some systems;
Some may consider the feed they are redirected to so be the same. Whereas
others may consider this to be a completely different channel!
If the software or system you are using prefers HTTPS over HTTP, you
should probably subscribe to 'https-feed.xml' instead of 'feed.xml'.
Otherwise it may break your subscription!
All of the does have it's limitations;
When a page is modified, only the 'pubDate' changes. 'title', 'link' and
'description' do not!
There are guids, based on both path and last modified date. E.G.:
'/foo/bar.html1234abcd',
where '1234abcd' is the hexadecimal
epoch pubDate.
But if a RSS reader / News aggregator ignores both pubDates and guids,
it may miss changes!
With HTTP, if a last modified date changes and the link stays the same,
the old document is deleted and automatically replaced by the new
version.
With RSS, either the new version is ignored or considered to a be a
completely different document. So you may need to delete older versions
manually.
RSS is meant for documents with a short lifespan.
Some of the documents on this website on the other hand, are nearly 30
years old. So using RSS to distribute document change notifications is
a bit of a hack.
Some people seem to like it though. And choice is important.