I couldn't debug the code because of my name • Hacker News Board

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#111

Post by InitialLastName » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #77

dahfizz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the IDE is at fault here. Rider has a bug with Unicode. BUT, there is an easy workaround to avoid all Unicode related bugs: don't use Unicode. If that's morally objectionable for you, then you can keep fighting this fight.

I think it's reasonable to find that morally objectionable: English is the only language* that can be fully represented in ASCII, so pretending that ASCII is all you need excludes a large part of the world. * yes, by and large. Many languages make do, but even the European languages that use the same script as English cannot be fully represented: - Pretty much all mainland European languages use accents (simple examp…

It's naïve of you to maintain the façade that English can be fully represented in ASCII. We've just had longer than other languages to adapt to that particular encoding technology, and the good luck to have a code set built to represent our language become the lingua franca of computer technology.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#112

Post by ygra » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

One way of working arrive such issues is to use subst. That way the application thinks your project directory is actually located on P:\ or something like that.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#113

Post by nullspace » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

xlii wrote: post #101

Very similar problem to one described started my exodus from Google services. I also have non-latin characters in my name however I knew it was always an issue so I never used it in paths etc. At some point, long time ago, I was tasked to do some maintance with Google Cloud service (can't remember the name of the service now) which was doable only through Python CLI utility and it failed with very similar Python erro…

> the best course of action would be to change my name

As someone who has been told this, for other reasons, I empathize. My reaction has always been - "Your system can't even handle names, you need to fix it".

Edit: I wish there was a library / service that helped you handle all sorts of edge cases in names, so that you don' t have to worry about it. Just use a user-id, and set / get a name from a lib / service that can actually handle it.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#114

Post by jan_Inkepa » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

supernes wrote: post #2

It's somewhat common to see videogames issue a patch shortly after release where they fix crashes due to non-ASCII Windows usernames or non-English locales. I'm not sure what the root cause of the confusion is, other than text strings being hard in general.

I've been bitten on a few small releases by forgetting that C# localises number->string conversion by default (which makes sense. But if you forget, and you're writing floats to csv files and the decimal points become decimal commas....).

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#115

Post by david_allison » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #66

amenod wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But these actively supported, paid products build upon layers and layers of no-longer-supported, free/opensource products. Good luck fixing them. Not saying that this is OK, just explaining why using non-ascii characters, in this day and age, is still asking for trouble.

This is on the Windows version. Windows 2000 is when the OS changed to UTF-16 by default. Before that Windows NT was UCS-2, IIRC only the DOS-based Windows versions were Windows-1252 internally, starting from Windows 1.0. So while ł wasn't supported in Windows 1, characters like ñ were. Windows has literally NEVER been an ASCII-based OS.

> Windows 2000 is when the OS changed to UTF-16 by default.

Paths are UTF-16 + unpaired surrogates, so a Windows path isn't legally representable in UTF-8.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#116

Post by mjevans » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

xlii wrote: post #101

Very similar problem to one described started my exodus from Google services. I also have non-latin characters in my name however I knew it was always an issue so I never used it in paths etc. At some point, long time ago, I was tasked to do some maintance with Google Cloud service (can't remember the name of the service now) which was doable only through Python CLI utility and it failed with very similar Python erro…

This is exactly why I hate the way Python3 handles Unicode.

EVERY language should _try_ to handle Unicode such that if a data sequence were valid before it remains valid after. NONE should ever FORCE validation, since sometimes, like in the article's case, the correct answer is GIGO. Just pass it through and hope it continues to work. Sometimes the error is trying to enforce that validation.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#117

Post by Dannymetconan » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

I can very much relate to this but also have very little sympathy here.

I have a special character in my name, an apostrophe, and it causes trouble regularly online and with tooling. A number of years ago I decided just to never use it when it came to anything to do with technical work be it email, logins or usernames.

Unicode characters are a pain to deal with and I have suffered from it first hand trying to handle it. At the end of the day it is much easier just to not use the special characters and move on with your life rather then be battling the constant frustration.

I'm sure these tools have lots of issues opening and you would be surprised at the amount of time, effort and testing it would be required to provide fully Unicode support. Most people would see it as a very small positive and not worth the effort. I find it hard to disagree.

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#118

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #55

zanderwohl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not strange to localize your name. In ASL for example, you could sign your English name letter-by-letter, but it's much more common to have a totally new sign for your name - usually a word combined with the first letter of your name. Taking part in a different system often means taking on another name.

It seems that you're implying computers are universally american and therefore people are expected to speak/use/adapt to american.

[deleted]

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#119

Post by dymk » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

nullspace wrote: post #113

xlii wrote: post #101

Very similar problem to one described started my exodus from Google services. I also have non-latin characters in my name however I knew it was always an issue so I never used it in paths etc. At some point, long time ago, I was tasked to do some maintance with Google Cloud service (can't remember the name of the service now) which was doable only through Python CLI utility and it failed with very similar Python erro…

> the best course of action would be to change my name As someone who has been told this, for other reasons, I empathize. My reaction has always been - "Your system can't even handle names, you need to fix it". Edit: I wish there was a library / service that helped you handle all sorts of edge cases in names, so that you don' t have to worry about it. Just use a user-id, and set / get a name from a lib / service that…

Has that reaction ever resulted in the other party fixing their system in a timely manner?

Re: I couldn't debug the code because of my name

#120

Post by mjevans » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #73

umvi wrote: post #9

Using non-ascii characters in file paths, toolchain config files, and other non-display contexts is just asking for trouble, even if it is your name...

Unfortunately, it's true, most toolchains are stuck in the past, and don't deal with non-ascii characters or even spaces very well. In fact, I just learned that spaces in .deskop files values could cause trouble after a long debugging. But it's a shame. In Europe, we do have a lot of non-ascii characters everywhere. Ubuntu puts a "Vidéo" and a "Téléchargements" directory in my $HOME because I'm french. If I were to u…

"The right thing" for filesystem entries is transparently copy, do not evaluate. A file path is a mem-copied, length value sized block of identifier you don't ever mangle. If you must mangle it, touch only the necessary areas as directed. (E.G. join with os.pathsep and do not normalize anything).

Want to offer Unicode validation? Sure having that as an OPTION is fine. Forcing it means I can't rely on that tool to handle real world data which happens to not be valid but is still a valid file-system address.