How hard is it to output some simple XML? Apparently, quite difficult, and impossible for some.
I love RSS, it allows me to keep track of new things happening in the world, like the latest scam:
Using TDOS (Telephone Denial Of Service) to attack victims while they abuse their on-line accounts. Wow, that's creative, but sick.
But, more and more, I am finding websites with broken RSS feeds:
http://www.thebackgroundinvestigator.com/ with broken RSS feed.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ with broken RSS feed.
Really! Don't write XML using print statements. Use an already written and well tested XML Library.
Yes, you can laugh at the rest of the world that uses XML Libraries and our valid RSS feeds, while you pat yourself on the back over the few lines of code you barfed into your editor to do the same thing. Except it doesn't do the same thing, it doesn't handle the odd quirks of XML. You miss escaping special characters, just like in HTML. You even mess up when you try doing defaults like wrapping all your text in CDATA. Please, re-use existing code libraries that work!
Instead you end up doing the worse thing in the world: Alienating people that are interested in your feed.
And what am I going to do? I'm going to write a RSS feed filter, that cleans up broken XML so I can still keep an eye on what's going on in the world. That, and it'll give me a chance to prove that perl really does stand for "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister".
Validating is Hard
And expensive. Ok, there are many RSS validators on the web, for free, just google!
And, because YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. Yes, validate my feed! 
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