Insert Catchy Title Here

Justin Etheredge posted a list of blogs that he follows.  He also posted a snippet of LINQ that converted his OPML file to a simple unordered HTML list.  He encouraged his readership to let him know if there are any really good blogs he was missing.  I was curious to see which blogs he reads that I have not yet subscribed to.  I tweaked his LINQ slightly to output blogs that were in his OPML file, but not in mine.

var doc1 = XDocument.Load("http://media.codethinked.com/downloads/Opml.xml");
var doc2 = XDocument.Load("http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/svc/opml.aspx?uid=134891&mid=1");

var result = new XElement("ul",
  from d1 in doc1.Elements("opml").Elements("body").Elements("outline")
  join d2 in doc2.Elements("opml").Elements("body").Elements("outline")
    on d1.Attribute("htmlUrl").Value equals d2.Attribute("htmlUrl").Value into d3
  from d2 in d3.DefaultIfEmpty()
  where d2 == null
  select 
    new XElement("li", 
      new XElement("a", 
        new XAttribute("href", d1.Attribute("htmlUrl").Value), d1.Attribute("text").Value
      ), 
      " ", 
      new XElement("a", 
        new XAttribute("href", d1.Attribute("xmlUrl").Value), "RSS"
      )
    )
  );

using (var xw = XmlWriter.Create("diff.xml", new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true }))  
{   
  result.WriteTo(xw);
}

diff.xml will contain blogs present in doc1 but not present in doc2.  This is by no means perfect so don’t cry if it includes a few entries present in both or doesn’t work with your OPML.  You could easily see which blogs both Justin and I read by changing the where clause.

Several readers wrote to Justin asking how he could possibly keep up with that many blogs.  I only spend about 20 minutes a day reading through new posts.  Only autonomous coding machines post everyday, so as long as I don’t lapse for more than a day or two it isn’t a problem keeping up.  I also skim long posts and flag them for a more thorough reading later.  Most of my subscriptions focus on .Net development but I have a few outliers like Zed Shaw’s blog.  It can make for an extremely entertaining read (as long as you are not the subject of his attentions :).