3 ms·

Often the schema is already enforced - e.g. in healthcare you'll find that somebody else has already normalized the wonderful world of names down to two Unicode

Often the schema is already enforced - e.g. in healthcare you'll find that somebody else has already normalized the wonderful world of names down to two Unicode strings called last and first. Names that don't fit that schema will be coerced by this wonderful technology called "an admissions clerk".

thfuran 8y ago
The DICOM standard has rather more to say about names than that: A character string encoded using a 5 component convention. The character code 5CH (the BACKSLASH "\" in ISO-IR 6) shall not be present, as it is used as the delimiter between values in multiple valued data elements. The string may be padded with trailing spaces. For human use, the five components in their order of occurrence are: family name complex, given name complex, middle name, name prefix, name suffix. Any of the five components may be an empty string. The component delimiter shall be the caret "^" character (5EH). Delimiters are required for interior null components. Trailing null components and their delimiters may be omitted. Multiple entries are permitted in each component and are encoded as natural text strings, in the format preferred by the named person. For veterinary use, the first two of the five components in their order of occurrence are: responsible party family name or responsible organization name, patient name. The remaining components are not used and shall not be present. This group of five components is referred to as a Person Name component group. For the purpose of writing names in ideographic characters and in phonetic characters, up to 3 groups of components (see Annexes H, I and J) may be used. The delimiter for component groups shall be the equals character "=" (3DH). The three component groups of components in their order of occurrence are: an alphabetic representation, an ideographic representation, and a phonetic representation. Any component group may be absent, including the first component group. In this case, the person name may start with one or more "=" delimiters. Delimiters are required for interior null component groups. Trailing null component groups and their delimiters may be omitted. Precise semantics are defined for each component group. See Section 6.2.1.2. For examples and notes, see Section 6.2.1.1.
Piskvorrr 8y ago
Ah! So, are you saying that it's actually not "yep, all the data fit", but "that which doesn't fit will be made to, by force if necessary"? Yup, that's what I am saying: let's just design this in a lazy way and pretend.
- thomasfedb 8y ago
  Can you propose a schema that permits all names to be represented without requiring coercion in any case? You'll need to start with with a graphical format, or a character encoding scheme more expressive than Unicode. Computer system or not, you won't be admitted to a hospital with your name recorded as the first 1000 digits of pi followed by the emoji for coffee and a drawing of a mouse in sneakers.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    I can not, nor am I pretending to. What I was reacting to was this: > Sometimes the answer to item 29: > > And will your software only be dealing with people named by your society? > Is: "yep" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568710 I understand that the list is not a set of absolute rules, rather a set of caveats - even mutually exclusive ones! - and that an actual implementation will necessarily violate some of that, and that some intermediate representation would be needed. In other words, there will probably be a "name(s)" textfield, none of this graphical strawman. What I have bristled at was the abovementioned "let's wish it away, that's enough: we'll pretend that everything is ASCII and let the users cope with our design problems ad hoc."
    - michaelcampbell 8y ago
      He's not wishing it away. His answer could just have been rooted in, "I understand my software won't cater to anyone. I'm ok with that." Bristle at that if you must, I guess; some people aren't happy unless they're mad.
nradov 8y ago
It depends which healthcare system you're dealing with. Legacy systems often have severe limitations. The more modern HL7 CDA R2 data interchange standard has an extremely flexible model for names which can properly accommodate the majority of "falsehoods".

thfuran 8y ago

The DICOM standard has rather more to say about names than that: A character string encoded using a 5 component convention. The character code 5CH (the BACKSLASH "\" in ISO-IR 6) shall not be present, as it is used as the delimiter between values in multiple valued data elements. The string may be padded with trailing spaces. For human use, the five components in their order of occurrence are: family name complex, given name complex, middle name, name prefix, name suffix. Any of the five components may be an empty string. The component delimiter shall be the caret "^" character (5EH). Delimiters are required for interior null components. Trailing null components and their delimiters may be omitted. Multiple entries are permitted in each component and are encoded as natural text strings, in the format preferred by the named person. For veterinary use, the first two of the five components in their order of occurrence are: responsible party family name or responsible organization name, patient name. The remaining components are not used and shall not be present. This group of five components is referred to as a Person Name component group. For the purpose of writing names in ideographic characters and in phonetic characters, up to 3 groups of components (see Annexes H, I and J) may be used. The delimiter for component groups shall be the equals character "=" (3DH). The three component groups of components in their order of occurrence are: an alphabetic representation, an ideographic representation, and a phonetic representation. Any component group may be absent, including the first component group. In this case, the person name may start with one or more "=" delimiters. Delimiters are required for interior null component groups. Trailing null component groups and their delimiters may be omitted. Precise semantics are defined for each component group. See Section 6.2.1.2. For examples and notes, see Section 6.2.1.1.

Piskvorrr 8y ago

Ah! So, are you saying that it's actually not "yep, all the data fit", but "that which doesn't fit will be made to, by force if necessary"? Yup, that's what I am saying: let's just design this in a lazy way and pretend.

thomasfedb 8y ago
Can you propose a schema that permits all names to be represented without requiring coercion in any case? You'll need to start with with a graphical format, or a character encoding scheme more expressive than Unicode. Computer system or not, you won't be admitted to a hospital with your name recorded as the first 1000 digits of pi followed by the emoji for coffee and a drawing of a mouse in sneakers.
- Piskvorrr 8y ago
  I can not, nor am I pretending to. What I was reacting to was this: > Sometimes the answer to item 29: > > And will your software only be dealing with people named by your society? > Is: "yep" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18568710 I understand that the list is not a set of absolute rules, rather a set of caveats - even mutually exclusive ones! - and that an actual implementation will necessarily violate some of that, and that some intermediate representation would be needed. In other words, there will probably be a "name(s)" textfield, none of this graphical strawman. What I have bristled at was the abovementioned "let's wish it away, that's enough: we'll pretend that everything is ASCII and let the users cope with our design problems ad hoc."
  - michaelcampbell 8y ago
    He's not wishing it away. His answer could just have been rooted in, "I understand my software won't cater to anyone. I'm ok with that." Bristle at that if you must, I guess; some people aren't happy unless they're mad.

nradov 8y ago

It depends which healthcare system you're dealing with. Legacy systems often have severe limitations. The more modern HL7 CDA R2 data interchange standard has an extremely flexible model for names which can properly accommodate the majority of "falsehoods".