# From RSS to Atom

DevFeed: [From RSS to Atom](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/from-rss-to-atom-37668.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://susam.net/from-rss-to-atom.html>)

Published: 2026-05-04T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Susam Pal](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/susam-pal.md>)

Topics: [Atom Feed](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/atom-feed.md>), [RSS Feed](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/rss-feed.md>), [Lisp](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/lisp.md>), [Git](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/git.md>), [XML](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/xml.md>)

Tags: [2026](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/2026.md>), [git](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/git.md>), [git-commit](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/git-commit.md>), [lisp](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/lisp.md>), [rss](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/rss.md>), [xml](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/xml.md>)

## AI overview

The author describes switching a personal website from RSS feeds to Atom feeds in 2026. The change was implemented in Common Lisp, took about an hour, and included replacing RSS item identifiers with UUID-based Atom entry identifiers and updating feed templates.

## Source excerpt

Yesterday, I switched my website from RSS feeds to Atom feeds. In case you are wondering whether you have somehow landed on an ancient post from 2010, no, you have not. Yes, this is the year 2026, and I have finally switched from RSS feeds to Atom feeds. Yes, I am fifteen, or perhaps twenty, years too late. Contents Impulse Coding Atom Entries Temporary Workaround Does It Matter? References Impulse Coding I have always wanted to do this but could never make the time for it. Finally, it happened while I was giving my brain some rest from my ongoing algebraic graph theory studies. That's when I felt like spending a little time on my website and doing a little Lisp to change the feeds from RSS to Atom. I suppose this was impulse coding, a bit like impulse buying, except that I ended up with an Atom feed instead of a new book. I find it quite surprising that when I have plenty of time, it usually does not occur to me to do these things, but when I am too busy and really short of time, these little ideas possess me during the short breaks I take. My personal website is one of my passion projects. Common Lisp is one of my favourite programming languages. So any time spent on this passion project using my favourite programming language is a very relaxing experience for me. It serves as an ideal break between intense study sessions. It took about an hour to implement the changes needed to make the switch from RSS to Atom. In the end, I could go back to my studies reinvigorated. In case you are curious, here is the Git commit where I implemented the change from RSS to Atom: 596e1dd. As you might notice, a large portion of the change consists of replacing the key attribute in each post with the uuid attribute. The key attribute value was used as the value of the <guid> element in the RSS feeds. While an arbitrary short string could serve as the <guid> element for the items in an RSS feed, the <id> element of the entries in an Atom feed needs to be a URI. It turns out UUID URN