Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 276 posts

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#71

Post by mrbadguy »

bhouston wrote: post #54
klausa wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making software that works across cultures (and especially _as many_ cultures as Apple's software does) is difficult. I guarantee you that every single one of those enum cases exists, because there is a language/culture where there is a specific word to describe that relationship; not "because an architect gave up".

I didn't know there were words for those in other languages. I guess I'd still prefer an expressive composable model for them so that I could reason about them. At least know who is related to who in which way, rather than these enums. But I guess that is outside of the scope for Apple - they just want that short name in the UX somewhere when adding a contact.

The point is that you don’t need to reason about the relationship because the name, in the local language, tells you everything you need to know. Of course, if you don’t speak the language then that’s not useful but the code is written for the end user to be able to use the labels, not for the software or its developer to be able to parse the family tree :)

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#72

Post by jachee »

secretsatan wrote: post #66

I’ve always been terrible at diagnosing family relationships, what would be the end result in english? ( or any other language ) Edit: or is it a word or phrase that doesn’t exist in English?

It’s largely a concept that doesn’t exist in English. All our parents’ siblings’ offspring are simply “cousins”; regardless of which parent, or which of their siblings, etc.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#73

Post by pndy »

miki123211 wrote: post #70
wizofaus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And very imprecise. Virtually nobody gets it right when trying to describe a relationship with an nth cousin m times removed. And recently I tried to work out a fairly basic relationship between myself and my son's step-sisters - they're not biologically related to me at all, or even by (current) marriage, but it seemed like there should be a term for it.

Languages like Polish are even worse, because you have to go in reverse, from the person described to yourself. It's the great great grandmother of the cousin of the uncle of the ex wife of your sister, not your sister's ex wife's uncle's great great grandmother.

The Old Polish had some pretty cool sounding terms for describing family relations that become forgotten, changed or dropped in favor of other words

dziewierz - husband's brother sounds way more cooler than szwagier imo

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#74

Post by bobwaycott »

lainga wrote: post #5
teruakohatu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting. In many English speaking cultures children will informally refear to their mother's parents and father's parents by different names even if formally they are both "grandmother", "grandfather" or "grandparent". I like that in China they formalised the names.

Related question (not really!) - two dads or moms - who should be called what?

Keep it fun. Annual competitive bouts for the title.

Option one: The winner becomes Prime.

Option two: The loser gets to live with not for a year. Or runner-up.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#75

Post by sdlfij3lkfjasij »

karelpeeters wrote: post #11

What value does this label have for English localization?

This feature is exclusively for the CN market. Where they have a very specific work for each of those.

and it is probably to improve siri. So people can say "call 伯伯" and Siri knows *exactly* which uncle you mean. which is probably some killer feature that only android phones from huwai had before.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#78

Post by notpushkin »

pndy wrote: post #73
miki123211 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages like Polish are even worse, because you have to go in reverse, from the person described to yourself. It's the great great grandmother of the cousin of the uncle of the ex wife of your sister, not your sister's ex wife's uncle's great great grandmother.

The Old Polish had some pretty cool sounding terms for describing family relations that become forgotten, changed or dropped in favor of other words dziewierz - husband's brother sounds way more cooler than szwagier imo

I think we still say that in Russian sometimes! (Although very, very rarely)

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1...

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#79

Post by dcow »

bhouston wrote: post #54
klausa wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making software that works across cultures (and especially _as many_ cultures as Apple's software does) is difficult. I guarantee you that every single one of those enum cases exists, because there is a language/culture where there is a specific word to describe that relationship; not "because an architect gave up".

I didn't know there were words for those in other languages. I guess I'd still prefer an expressive composable model for them so that I could reason about them. At least know who is related to who in which way, rather than these enums. But I guess that is outside of the scope for Apple - they just want that short name in the UX somewhere when adding a contact.

Even if it's modeled with more compositional finesse in the code, you still need a UI level label for this combination of relationships in some culture where there's an appropriate term for it, so you still end up with some label like this.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#80

Post by munificent »

Jiocus wrote: post #64
robofanatic wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even "Uncle". In english, Mom's brother and Dad's brother both are uncles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like others noted in the thread about grandparents, in Scandinavia we'd say morbror (mother-brother) and farbror (father-brother). What's fun though is that 'farbror' can also be used (in Swedish) for any neutral/kindly spirited or acquainted old man, so maybe we're not too practical after all.

> What's fun though is that 'farbror' can also be used (in Swedish) for any neutral/kindly spirited or acquainted old man, so maybe we're not too practical after all.

English has "avuncular" as an adjective to describe any friendly uncle-like person.

Post reply on HN