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People with names that break computers

bbc.com

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Re: People with names that break computers

#271

Post by Marazan »

jhall1468 wrote: post #58
zimpenfish wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websites that insist on forcing me to enter a first and last name always get abuse in the latter. What I call myself on websites is my business, not yours.

If at any point in the process they need to bill you for something, they have to ask for your first and last name because that's exactly what the credit card companies require. So there are use cases. Personally, I don't see why any company is asking for a name if they aren't billing you for something or they aren't a social network.

No they don't, they ask for the full name on the card in a single free text field.

Re: People with names that break computers

#272

Post by yoklov »

stvswn wrote: post #203
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those memes are memes because Asimov invented them. You sound like I guy I once heard complain that The Lord of the Rings was just a collection of D&D cliches.

"I tried to read Shakespeare, but the storylines were so cliched... like every romantic comedy..." "I don't like the Beatles, I've heard that pop style a million times before"

I think the latter is fairly reasonable. They may have invented it, but at this point it has been done an awful lot, and someone could be forgiven for being sick of it.

Shakespeare's writing OTOH is still outstanding even if the stories are cliche (and they were cliche at the time as well)

Re: People with names that break computers

#273

Post by hvo »

patio11 wrote: post #267
hvo wrote: post #131

I am convinced that the programmer interviewed in this article by BBC is the same Patrick McKenzie(patio11).

Yep.

Haha.I got it right.You did a good job in that interview.BBC should be interviewing you more often. And keep up the good work.

Re: People with names that break computers

#274

Post by hvo »

harryh wrote: post #228
hvo wrote: post #131

I am convinced that the programmer interviewed in this article by BBC is the same Patrick McKenzie(patio11).

It must be right? How many Patrick McKenzies that live in Japan and can talk to a reporter about tech issues can there be?

Yes.I am.

Re: People with names that break computers

#275

Post by takno »

twic wrote: post #224
takno wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London, along with most county towns in the UK shouldn't have a county appended to them. This isn't the case for New York.

In a postal address, no. But in the comment which spawned this godforsaken subthread, i specifically referred to "UK forms which ask for a city and a county".

In administrative terms about half the cities and many of the large towns in the UK aren't part of a county anymore. It's just a field which doesn't help much if there's a postcode, and should never have been mandatory anywhere.

Re: People with names that break computers

#276

Post by msbarnett »

david-given wrote: post #160
silveira wrote: post #28

I have a first name composed of two names, and one of them with an acute accent. This is enough to cause some of my credit cards to be printed with a repeated name because they assume my "second first name" to be a middle name too. The acute accent results in encoding problems once in a while. But nothing compares the problems that people with names longer than 30 characters have to face. Creating a SSN card, or driv…

That list makes me very sad. Not because it's not interesting, which it is, but because it'd be so much more interesting if it discussed each item as it went. This one, for example: People’s names are assigned at birth. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth. Five years? You’re kidding me, right? Don't leave me there! Tell me which culture assigns na…

It's rare, but in cases of amnesia grown adults with no memory of their identity would have a name assigned to them sometime after receiving medical attention.

Re: People with names that break computers

#277

Post by cmarschner »

habosa wrote: post #166
rexreed wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted a license plate I1II0O0O just to mess with the automated license plate scanners and video tolls

Many states don't allow both "I" and "1" or "O" and "0" in their character set. NJ is one that doesn't. However in NYC I saw a limo with the plates "1I11II1"

Wouldn't be a problem if they used the FE font. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift

Re: People with names that break computers

#278

Post by Grishnakh »

kbenson wrote: post #98
Grishnakh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the database at least, I don't see why you need unit tests or any testing at all. Assuming that you're going to require at least two names (no single-name names allowed), then a string for First Name and a string for Last Name should be sufficient. If this is a decent database, where the string can have any Unicode character, including a space, and you don't set a limit on the string length (modern databases don'…

Perhaps you should read, or if you have read, really internalize the "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names" link referenced above. Here's some choice excerpts: 5. People have exactly N names, for any value of N. 11. People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points. 18. People’s names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as lon…

I already addressed many of these by just advising to have arbitary-length strings (and maybe just a single one). That takes care of #5, #11, and #20. I don't see how #32 - 36 are even relevant: your system should just take whatever name they give you. How long they've had the name is irrelevant (as long as you have a mechanism to change it).

#40: Sorry, but how can you not have a name? Good luck getting an ID document without a name. That doesn't make sense.

#11: This just sounds dumb: Unicode has thousands upon thousands of characters. Only with Chinese can I see this possibly being a problem, but even here I thought Unicode did account for that. Unicode was designed to have every conceivable glyph that every language on Earth uses.

Re: People with names that break computers

#279

Post by jhall1468 »

takno wrote: post #205
jhall1468 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If at any point in the process they need to bill you for something, they have to ask for your first and last name because that's exactly what the credit card companies require. So there are use cases. Personally, I don't see why any company is asking for a name if they aren't billing you for something or they aren't a social network.

I've never seen a credit card company ask for separate first and last names.

Sometimes I think Hacker News forgets the world doesn't start with LA and end with Miami.

http://developer.authorize.net/api/reference/

firstName

First name associated with customer’s billing address. Required only when using a European Payment Processor.

Re: People with names that break computers

#280

Post by jhall1468 »

Marazan wrote: post #271
jhall1468 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If at any point in the process they need to bill you for something, they have to ask for your first and last name because that's exactly what the credit card companies require. So there are use cases. Personally, I don't see why any company is asking for a name if they aren't billing you for something or they aren't a social network.

No they don't, they ask for the full name on the card in a single free text field.

Sometimes I think Hacker News forgets the world doesn't start with LA and end with Miami.

http://developer.authorize.net/api/reference/

firstName

First name associated with customer’s billing address. Required only when using a European Payment Processor.

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