4 ms·

This may drive DBAs nuts, but in some cases, perhaps you could have a naming_convention variable that is filled out first, and it has a certain number of limite

This may drive DBAs nuts, but in some cases, perhaps you could have a naming_convention variable that is filled out first, and it has a certain number of limited values, and it determines the number and order of "name" fields that get filled out. Then you have a catch-all naming_convention that just produces one "name" label that's very long, and you put the whole name in there. Then you can have, say, "Western" naming convention, "Asian" (reverse order), "Spanish", "Catalan", "Hungarian", "Ancient Roman", and some of these are going to look very similar. And then if Madonna Ciccone or Beyonce Knowles comes around, you just use the catch-all for the mononymous. It's not an elegant solution and it's not going to work for user-oriented forms, but perhaps on the backend, I don't know, for Wikipedia or something. Wikipedia already tags many biographies with the naming convention that is used.

cratermoon 3y ago
I'd go further and say we need to stop passing around names as language primitive strings. Serious work on Name types in the standard library would go a long way towards making life easier for developers, in the same way the Calendar, Date, Time, and Duration types have made dealing with time.
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  Not a bad idea. Form builders and the like increasingly do offer fancy string data types (like "Link" for example, which captures the desired link text and URL as a tuple, and sometimes even more detail than that), so it does seem reasonable for "Name of a person" to be dealt with similarly.
- macintux 3y ago
  I’m skeptical. Calendar, date, time all have a finite set of values. Sure, it’s a complex, maddening morass, but ultimately it boils down to a small set of integers, and a small set of standards to implement. Names are effectively a collection of arbitrary Unicode values with a fair number of complications (sorting, multiple names, etc), and there is no set of standards to draw upon for implementation.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    > there is no set of standards to draw upon for implementation Fair point. I used those examples mostly to acknowledge that programming has moved on from treating them as strings and integers. It's true that in the US there are few, if any, restrictions on naming. Only in 2017 did California, by law, allow names with diacriticals, as in José. However, in other countries there are interesting restrictions and patterns. Icelandic law, to give one example. > Names are effectively a collection of arbitrary Unicode values Well, yes, for just the string, but names are more than a sequence of characters. The structure of what a name is, and how it's presented, matters. for example given vs surname order, patronymic, Mongolian clan names, supported characters in CJK, and so forth. Those are things that are hard to get right, and having every organization doing i18n create its own one-off name handling code has led to chaos and a lack of interoperability internationally.
    - macintux 3y ago
      I think there are a few possible outcomes of an attempt to standardize how computers deal with names. - Every programming language, database, etc implements something, but overall they’re not the same solution, leaving us mostly where we are today. - Some computer standard emerges, but fails because it’s not flexible enough for all the business and cultural needs, leaving us mostly where we are today. - Some computer standard emerges, is good enough for most needs, but leaves people bitter because it leads to yet more cultural standardization in a world already suffering from cultural globalization. I’m inherently skeptical of all change, I suppose, and my belief is we’ll just muddle along forever.
      - cratermoon 3y ago
        You could say more or less the same thing about how calendars and date/time are implemented today, as well as general language support when including bidi, CJK, and other non-roman languages. Unicode is widespread but we still have a variety of encodings, not just UTF-8.Geographical naming isn't exactly a solved problem, but localization exists. We have stuff that works, there are rough edges and plenty of places it could improve, sure. Maybe my experiences in the industry have been particularly plagued by the handling of names, sometimes so badly that I have to roll my eyes. The handling of human names just seems like a big opportunity to remove friction across international boundaries.

cratermoon 3y ago

I'd go further and say we need to stop passing around names as language primitive strings. Serious work on Name types in the standard library would go a long way towards making life easier for developers, in the same way the Calendar, Date, Time, and Duration types have made dealing with time.

hunter2_ 3y ago
Not a bad idea. Form builders and the like increasingly do offer fancy string data types (like "Link" for example, which captures the desired link text and URL as a tuple, and sometimes even more detail than that), so it does seem reasonable for "Name of a person" to be dealt with similarly.
macintux 3y ago
I’m skeptical. Calendar, date, time all have a finite set of values. Sure, it’s a complex, maddening morass, but ultimately it boils down to a small set of integers, and a small set of standards to implement. Names are effectively a collection of arbitrary Unicode values with a fair number of complications (sorting, multiple names, etc), and there is no set of standards to draw upon for implementation.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  > there is no set of standards to draw upon for implementation Fair point. I used those examples mostly to acknowledge that programming has moved on from treating them as strings and integers. It's true that in the US there are few, if any, restrictions on naming. Only in 2017 did California, by law, allow names with diacriticals, as in José. However, in other countries there are interesting restrictions and patterns. Icelandic law, to give one example. > Names are effectively a collection of arbitrary Unicode values Well, yes, for just the string, but names are more than a sequence of characters. The structure of what a name is, and how it's presented, matters. for example given vs surname order, patronymic, Mongolian clan names, supported characters in CJK, and so forth. Those are things that are hard to get right, and having every organization doing i18n create its own one-off name handling code has led to chaos and a lack of interoperability internationally.
  - macintux 3y ago
    I think there are a few possible outcomes of an attempt to standardize how computers deal with names. - Every programming language, database, etc implements something, but overall they’re not the same solution, leaving us mostly where we are today. - Some computer standard emerges, but fails because it’s not flexible enough for all the business and cultural needs, leaving us mostly where we are today. - Some computer standard emerges, is good enough for most needs, but leaves people bitter because it leads to yet more cultural standardization in a world already suffering from cultural globalization. I’m inherently skeptical of all change, I suppose, and my belief is we’ll just muddle along forever.
    - cratermoon 3y ago
      You could say more or less the same thing about how calendars and date/time are implemented today, as well as general language support when including bidi, CJK, and other non-roman languages. Unicode is widespread but we still have a variety of encodings, not just UTF-8.Geographical naming isn't exactly a solved problem, but localization exists. We have stuff that works, there are rough edges and plenty of places it could improve, sure. Maybe my experiences in the industry have been particularly plagued by the handling of names, sometimes so badly that I have to roll my eyes. The handling of human names just seems like a big opportunity to remove friction across international boundaries.