NASA & RSS

I'm not exactly sure why, but someone forwarded me the feedvalidator results of a NASA RSS feed, and they fail miserably.

There's empty <pubDate>s, javascript <link>s, unencoded HTML in the <description> that's not valid XML and therefore makes the entire document invalid, etc.

Quite frankly, coming from NASA, I found it somewhat amusing... I mean, it's not like this stuff is exactly rocket science, is it?

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.hutteman.com/scgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/207
Comments

Now that was a good one. :-)

Posted by Christine at January 28, 2006 12:10 AM

Rocket Science

Trackback from Sam Ruby at January 29, 2006 9:11 AM

hi there,

I guess NASA deploys the right kind of developer for the right task.

Mission critical software gets the cool developers
whereas the not so mission critical stuff gets the usual developer

-- just about
every company out there sent invalid feeds till it is told about it!

BR,
~A

Posted by Anjan Bacchu at January 29, 2006 2:15 PM

Send a note to Keith Cowing at NASAWatch.com. Keith likes skewering NASA for stuff like this.

NASA IT leaves ... a lot to be desired.

Posted by Geof F. Morris at January 29, 2006 7:53 PM

I dunno, I've done simulations on masses doing re-entry and that was a helluva lot easier than trying to figure out what the hell the RSS2.0/Atom/RSS1 specs say.

Posted by Danno at January 30, 2006 2:02 AM

Is this a live RSS feed?
http://www.nasa.gov/rss/ lists the NASA public feeds. I don't see a lab science one listed. The other RSS Feeds do validate. What website links to this bad feed?

Posted by Christopher Bunk at January 30, 2006 2:54 PM

Yes, those are "myNASA" channel RSS feeds and aren't checked frequently (hence they are not listed as regular feeds - an "easter egg" of sorts). I think you'll find that there's a perfectly simple explanation for this: it's generated by an automated process, and (surprise!) sometimes automated processes break.

Thanks for letting us know - albeit indirectly - so we can fix it!

[Paints a giant target on his back.]

Posted by Colin Enger at January 31, 2006 10:21 AM

Unpaid? I donated a buck. It's a good program Luke.

Posted by Compugasm at February 10, 2006 2:13 AM

Mhhh, OFF TOPIC:

Is there a possibility to use FireFox as Feedbrowser in the preview window??

:)

Posted by Pash at February 13, 2006 6:28 AM

Hey mate, i was wondering if you were planning a new version of sharpreader anytime soon? its great!

Posted by john at February 22, 2006 1:41 PM

I'D OFFER YOU A POSITION IF I WERE THEM. I'm just starting out. Mainly to see what it's all about. I'm a bored retired home user who is just amazed at how far computers have come and what they are capable of. Any tips you want to impart would be welcome. Have a nice day.

Posted by Jack Tracy at February 28, 2006 12:05 AM

Agree with Christopher Bunk. imho, It could be done deliberately by NASA team for reasons yet to be figured out. I checked out the RSS Feeds page at http://www.nasa.gov/rss/ and there is no reference to the feed discussed. It could also have been just abandoned...

Posted by guest at March 9, 2006 8:00 PM
This discussion has been closed. If you wish to contact me about this post, you can do so by email.