Languages in MSN Spaces

If I say anything below, I should be saying this: "MSN Spaces team, will you please publish a list of languages that you currently provide direct translation for?  Or, change the RSS feed to report the EXACT language that the space content was written in rather than the language I am requesting in?"

 

The pros and cons of making international software "smart" are numerous.  Encountering problems are a certainty when making any robust software available on the global market.  Certainly there have been many successful products, but I am having difficulty with the solution MSN Spaces employed in their RSS feeds for each of our spaces.

 

Language and Software

 

In my humble opinion... the MSN Spaces team is reporting the wrong language in many of our RSS feeds.  The "gray" line is how you interpret "subregions" or sub-populations of a language.  In code, an application is usually written in one language and then translated into other languages.  The software program often attempts to find your specific language and, if your specific language does not exist as a translation, it attempts to provide the next best translation.  So, if I speak another version of Spanish than the one provided by the software program, it will give me the version of Spanish it has.

 

How MSN Spaces Handles Languages

 

Without going into detail about the various layers of how MSN Spaces handles languages, my problem with their implementation comes to this...  When you request a web page or RSS feed from MSN Spaces, it looks up your preferred language (using your internet browser and / or Passport preferences) and attempts to provide the MSN Spaces text in that language.  However, the content of the space may be a different version of the language provided, since the text of MSN Spaces might not have been translated into your EXACT language or possibly not at all.

 

Here's a great example... When I request the list of "more spaces", I get a list of spaces that have either the same language as mine or the closest thing to it.  So, if my language settings say "en-US", I should see only English spaces.  But, if my language is German, I should see only German spaces.  Get it?  Well, what if my language is some other version of English that MSN Spaces hasn't been translated into?  Then it would probably give me English spaces.

 

So, when my automated program visits a space in a specific language (say "en-US-Eric"), MSN Spaces responds with only "en-US" spaces in the "Updated spaces" box.  But, what happens if someone's blog is written in "en-US-Nada"?  Of course, MSN Spaces will assume it is "en-US" as well.  So, when I request "en-US-Eric", I will get spaces in "en-US" AND "en-US-Nada"...

 

... unfortunately, the RSS feed would report that the language for all of these is "en-US-Eric", since it is the current language, and not "en-US" for spaces that are simply English and "en-US-Nada" for spaces that are something else!!!  So, if your space was written in a "primary" language when my automated program is requesting another version of that primary language, EVERYTHING will be reported as the other version and not what it really is!

 

I'm not blaming anyone at MSN Spaces for this.  It's not technically a mistake on their part.  Technically, it's a very robust feature that happens to not support what I am trying to use it for.  Ever try to use the back of a screwdriver or the side of a wrench instead of going to get a hammer?  Problem is, I don't know where the MSN Spaces team keeps the hammer or if I even have access to it.

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