4 ms·

Because it's not his name. Imagine you are John but you had to make do with Yohn because the people designing you software didn't need the letter J...

zanderwohl 5y ago
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.
- pndy 5y ago
  > It's not strange to localize your name. That reminds me that I was talking once to the guy who turn Mikołaj name into Mikowhy pseudonym
- q3k 5y ago
  It seems that you're implying computers are universally american and therefore people are expected to speak/use/adapt to american.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    That's the harsh way to put it. A more diplomatic way is that computing is not unique in having deeply ingrained artifacts of the language and culture that birthed it and developed many of the paradigms. Take anything having to do with seamanship. There are many terms that date back to early modern English that simply don't make sense anymore yet are accepted and universal because the British Empire had a large and enduring influence on maritime matters and happened to be at the forefront of most modern developments until about 70 years ago. In some cases this is actually built into laws and industry practice. Pilots speak English. That's the rules. Don't like it? Invent the time machine and beat Wilbur and Orville. For much the same reason, science speaks Latin. This technical debt is difficult if not impossible to overcome, especially in regards to computers because we still haven't cracked general purpose AI. Software will only accommodate what it was written to accommodate. Recognizing the problem and working to fix it is all well and good. But its wise to understand that this wont be solved any time soon so in the meantime it is pragmatic to operate in such a way to maximize compatibility. After all, I still have to call it a Foc'sle even if I think that's dumb or isn't inclusive of my culture.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      There's also the practical consideration that English, due to having a) an alphabet b) letter shapes that aren't affected by surrounding letters and c) no diacritics, is the easiest major language to store and display on a computer. Even if silicon valley ended up in a country with a logographic writing system, I'd bet that the first character set that would have been used would have been Latin based
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
kmlx 5y ago
it was 30 years ago when i discovered that it doesn’t really matter what my name is. the system i’m interacting with expects my name to be “john” or something like that. so i let it be. 30 years later and i completely dropped all non-latin chars from my name in any and all forms. from airplane tickets to passport to you name it. and you know what? no one cared about non-latin. not even the government. i loled when i actually realised. i’ve encountered zero issues ever since. and it’s been the same for lots of my friends. they just adopted some western name. case closed, no more issues. it all depends on who much importance you attribute to your name. for me it’s always been a random variable. for others it’s a matter of pride. but to the “system” it will be a “random list of chars”, sometimes latin, other times utf.
AdrianB1 5y ago
My name contains non-Latin characters (apparently strange as we use a Latin language), but 40 years of working with computers I learned to avoid using the original form and always convert to ASCII; yes, it is not my name, but my pride and sense of entitlement are not hurt at all. Sometimes it is better to avoid being hit by the bus even if you are right.

zanderwohl 5y ago

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.

pndy 5y ago
> It's not strange to localize your name. That reminds me that I was talking once to the guy who turn Mikołaj name into Mikowhy pseudonym
q3k 5y ago
It seems that you're implying computers are universally american and therefore people are expected to speak/use/adapt to american.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  That's the harsh way to put it. A more diplomatic way is that computing is not unique in having deeply ingrained artifacts of the language and culture that birthed it and developed many of the paradigms. Take anything having to do with seamanship. There are many terms that date back to early modern English that simply don't make sense anymore yet are accepted and universal because the British Empire had a large and enduring influence on maritime matters and happened to be at the forefront of most modern developments until about 70 years ago. In some cases this is actually built into laws and industry practice. Pilots speak English. That's the rules. Don't like it? Invent the time machine and beat Wilbur and Orville. For much the same reason, science speaks Latin. This technical debt is difficult if not impossible to overcome, especially in regards to computers because we still haven't cracked general purpose AI. Software will only accommodate what it was written to accommodate. Recognizing the problem and working to fix it is all well and good. But its wise to understand that this wont be solved any time soon so in the meantime it is pragmatic to operate in such a way to maximize compatibility. After all, I still have to call it a Foc'sle even if I think that's dumb or isn't inclusive of my culture.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    There's also the practical consideration that English, due to having a) an alphabet b) letter shapes that aren't affected by surrounding letters and c) no diacritics, is the easiest major language to store and display on a computer. Even if silicon valley ended up in a country with a logographic writing system, I'd bet that the first character set that would have been used would have been Latin based
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

kmlx 5y ago

it was 30 years ago when i discovered that it doesn’t really matter what my name is. the system i’m interacting with expects my name to be “john” or something like that. so i let it be. 30 years later and i completely dropped all non-latin chars from my name in any and all forms. from airplane tickets to passport to you name it. and you know what? no one cared about non-latin. not even the government. i loled when i actually realised. i’ve encountered zero issues ever since. and it’s been the same for lots of my friends. they just adopted some western name. case closed, no more issues. it all depends on who much importance you attribute to your name. for me it’s always been a random variable. for others it’s a matter of pride. but to the “system” it will be a “random list of chars”, sometimes latin, other times utf.

AdrianB1 5y ago

My name contains non-Latin characters (apparently strange as we use a Latin language), but 40 years of working with computers I learned to avoid using the original form and always convert to ASCII; yes, it is not my name, but my pride and sense of entitlement are not hurt at all. Sometimes it is better to avoid being hit by the bus even if you are right.