4 ms·

Hello, I’m Mr. Null. My Name Makes Me Invisible to Computers

7 points by devhxinc 11y ago

coreyp_1 11y ago
I was just talking to my students yesterday about making assumptions with user data, and in this particular instance, assuming that a last name is only one word. Years ago, when I first started using Google AdSense on my website, they had problems with my physical address. Specifically, they did not allow you to use a PO Box address as your physical address. Makes sense. Well, I lived in a rural area, so my physical address was "Route 1 Box 246" (back then there was NO other designation for the house location that I could use, now commonly known as a "911 address"). The website would not allow me to sign up because "Box" appeared in the middle of the address line. I sent them an email and they had it fixed remarkably fast, but I have used it over the years as a good example of a case for not making assumptions on input.
- cafard 11y ago
  Somebody once set up a report for us using Microsoft controls. When processing some addresses in I forget what state, it encountered values that looked like 25E155 as scientific notation and blew up on floating point overflow. It was not hard to tweak the input once we figured out what was going on.
joshfraser 11y ago
The name I use for all my test accounts is Null O'Reilly.
rossdavidh 11y ago
I am reminded of those systems which cannot accept that a person (perhaps of Indonesian origin) has only one name. Or that cannot accept that a last name has an apostrophe in it. Or that cannot accept a name with a space in it. Is there a resource of every weird case in people's names, that is publicly available and of modest size, that could be used for software testing? It would be nice if people like Mr. Null could add their name to such a list, and it became generally known among software developers.
- ccvannorman 11y ago
  Naturally, such lists have been compiled over the years--sadly, unexplained database errors have mysteriously prevented the lists from being propagated and maintained.
DrScump 11y ago
Already posted five times this week... first here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512811

7 points by devhxinc 11y ago

I was just talking to my students yesterday about making assumptions with user data, and in this particular instance, assuming that a last name is only one word. Years ago, when I first started using Google AdSense on my website, they had problems with my physical address. Specifically, they did not allow you to use a PO Box address as your physical address. Makes sense. Well, I lived in a rural area, so my physical address was "Route 1 Box 246" (back then there was NO other designation for the house location that I could use, now commonly known as a "911 address"). The website would not allow me to sign up because "Box" appeared in the middle of the address line. I sent them an email and they had it fixed remarkably fast, but I have used it over the years as a good example of a case for not making assumptions on input.

cafard 11y ago
Somebody once set up a report for us using Microsoft controls. When processing some addresses in I forget what state, it encountered values that looked like 25E155 as scientific notation and blew up on floating point overflow. It was not hard to tweak the input once we figured out what was going on.

joshfraser 11y ago

The name I use for all my test accounts is Null O'Reilly.

rossdavidh 11y ago

I am reminded of those systems which cannot accept that a person (perhaps of Indonesian origin) has only one name. Or that cannot accept that a last name has an apostrophe in it. Or that cannot accept a name with a space in it. Is there a resource of every weird case in people's names, that is publicly available and of modest size, that could be used for software testing? It would be nice if people like Mr. Null could add their name to such a list, and it became generally known among software developers.

ccvannorman 11y ago
Naturally, such lists have been compiled over the years--sadly, unexplained database errors have mysteriously prevented the lists from being propagated and maintained.

DrScump 11y ago

Already posted five times this week... first here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512811