RSS and Atom Programming Source

I'm relatively new to the blogging world so when I started noticing that orange button with the letters "RSS" or "XML" in some blogs, I became incredibly curious. Then I realized that it was a way for blogs (or some constantly updated sites) to make the lives of readers easier through "feeds". Instead of a reader visiting her favorite blogs/ sites one by one to check if there's something new, she simply logs on to an online tool (like feedster, bloglines, newsgator, etc.) where she can place all the "feeds" of her favorite web places. Unlike usual links, "feeds" indicate whatever is new at that particular site. The reader can just browse through the headlines of each site to see if she really wants to check out all of the sites or just the ones she finds interesting.

Thanks to the book by Danny Ayers and Andrew Watt, I now know what a freaking feed means. RSS and Atom are methods of producing feeds. Anyway, I haven't read through the entire book, because honestly, even if the book was written in the simplest possible way I still can't comprehend some aspects of the whole programming thing. It's like studying "Brain Surgery for Idiots" when you're in junior high school. In time, maybe I'll be able to really understand it. For now, I'll stick to pretending that I do.