Open Formats Are Nice: iCal

January 25th, 2011
ical, programming, python, tech
A while ago I decided that I wanted my schedule to show up on google calendar so I could look at one calendar that had both my events and julia's events. So I wrote something to convert it into ical format, and set my scripts to run that whenever I changed the calendar. At the time, this turned out not to be very helpful: google would load my calendar feed but then wouldn't make updates. So I left it alone for a year.

Now my situation changes: I have a mac. So I open up ical, import my feed, import julia's google calendar feed, and everything just works [1]. The reason this all worked is that google advertised support of someone else's open format, ical, so that when I wanted google calendar support that's what I implemented. If they had instead chosen to write their own format or something, I would have needed to start all over to get ical integration and might never have taken the time.


[1] Actually, it doesn't. I hadn't implemented all-day events properly, so I had to tweak my feed generation scripts.

Comment via: substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

On Apologizing To Kids

Everyone is so weird about apologizing to children.

via Thing of Things August 25, 2025

Against the Teapot Hold in Contra Dancing

The teapot hold is the most dangerous common contra dancing figure, so I’ve been avoiding it. The teapot hold, sometimes called a "courtesy turn hold,” requires one dancer to connect with their hand behind their back. When I realized I could avoid put…

via Emma Azelborn August 25, 2025

Little Puppy

She's very little and she likes to do stuff with me. She also likes to bark around and run around and jump around. She also likes to go to places with me and that's all I have.

via Nora Wise's Blog Posts August 23, 2025

more     (via openring)