Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#11

Post by senkora » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

Zababa wrote: post #4

> In some countries (notably French speaking) it is convention to write a person’s surname in all caps to make it clear which part of the name is the surname. This is a French-specific thing? I didn't know that. I really like it, it makes it easier to know which part is the name and which part is the family name.

I’ve also seen it in the CIA World Factbook. I didn’t realize it was a French thing.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/japan/

Lots of info on the page, but the relevant part:

“head of government: Prime Minister Fumio KISHIDA (since 4 October 2021 )“

Edit: Another example:

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/albania/

“head of government: Prime Minister Edi RAMA (since 10 September 2013); Deputy Prime Minister Senida MESI (since 13 September 2017)“

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#12

Post by notum » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

Svip wrote: post #9

Programmers need to learn from bureaucrats of the 19th century. When bookkeeping of the people truly became a thing in the 1800s, industrialised nations sent out bureaucrats to collect the names of people in villages. Unfortunately, people seldom had enough names to fill in the forms the bureaucrats had. The idea of a family name was not something bestowed to nor necessary for a lowborn. If you're the only Jack in to…

Some airlines do this, they ask that you anglicise your name for the boarding pass.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#13

Post by kgeist » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

A few years ago we were required to pass Microsoft's certification exams, one of the options was to do it online. Their requirement was that the name/surname in the application form had to be identical to what's in your ID (you also had to attach scans of your ID). The problem is, we're from Russia, and the form didn't allow Cyrillic letters, and there's only Cyrillic letters in a Russian ID. We had to fly all the way to St.Petersburg to pass exams offline in a Microsoft-approved certification center, instead of just doing it online in our office. Another option was getting a travel passport (it contains a Latin transliteration), but the deadlines didn't allow us to wait for up to 1 month (maximum time for issuing a travel passport here).

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#14

Post by number6 » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

notum wrote: post #5

Gotcha. Un-validated unicode text boxes for names in forms from now on. After all, someone could be named like the contents of a 64MB binary blob. Compromises are unavoidable in web development.

Oj yes litten QmFieSBUYWJsZXM=, we call him.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#15

Post by ajsnigrutin » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

In some countries, women have different last names than men do.

Eg. in macedonia, traditionally a person would get their fathers name as their surname (so if the fathers name was "Petar", and the son was Dragan, the lastname would be roughly translated to "Dragan of Peter"). Because there are different forms for feminine and masculine words, The son would be named "Dragan Petrovski", and the daughter (Eg Marija) would be named "Marija Petrovska".

This tanslated to modern times means, that if "Marija Ilijevska" married "Dragan Petrovski", she would then be named "Marija Petrovska". Their sons surname would again be "Petrovski" and daughter "Petrovska".

So basically matching parents and their kids by their last names has to take in account the -ski or -ska form .

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#16

Post by david422 » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

notum wrote: post #5

Gotcha. Un-validated unicode text boxes for names in forms from now on. After all, someone could be named like the contents of a 64MB binary blob. Compromises are unavoidable in web development.

Nullable, of course.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#17

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15

In some countries, women have different last names than men do. Eg. in macedonia, traditionally a person would get their fathers name as their surname (so if the fathers name was "Petar", and the son was Dragan, the lastname would be roughly translated to "Dragan of Peter"). Because there are different forms for feminine and masculine words, The son would be named "Dragan Petrovski", and the daughter (Eg Marija) woul…

[deleted]

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#18

Post by user-the-name » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

elchief wrote: post #3

A personal name is either a Polynym (a name with multiple sortable components), a Mononym (a name with only one component), or a Pictonym (a name represented by a picture - this exists due to people like [Prince][1]). A person can have multiple names, playing roles, such as LEGAL, MARITAL, MAIDEN, PREFERRED, SOBRIQUET, PSEUDONYM, etc. You might have business rules, such as "a person can only have one legal name at a…

You can very easily have multiple legal names, as "legal" is a national concept and you can have multiple citizenships, each one with a different legal system and thus potentially a different legal name.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#19

Post by kube-system » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

> I fear that part of the reason that this blog post had less impact than I hoped was that Patrick did not give examples of how each assumption can be false.

I think the reason is that many assume that these cases are niche and not something they need to worry about.

Which might be the case, or might not, depending on the application. But either way, using celebrities or historical figures is not a great way to convince anyone otherwise.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about names – with examples (2018)

#20

Post by R0b0t1 » Sun, Nov 07, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

kgeist wrote: post #13

A few years ago we were required to pass Microsoft's certification exams, one of the options was to do it online. Their requirement was that the name/surname in the application form had to be identical to what's in your ID (you also had to attach scans of your ID). The problem is, we're from Russia, and the form didn't allow Cyrillic letters, and there's only Cyrillic letters in a Russian ID. We had to fly all the wa…

They refused to accept a romanization? If so that's doubly bad. Excusing technical deficiencies is one thing, but preventing people from working around them is indicative of a high level organizational failure.