4 ms·

Let's for a minute assume that we as developers will be able to agree on some sort of best practice. The "Falsehoods" article and the W3C page mentioned in the

Let's for a minute assume that we as developers will be able to agree on some sort of best practice. The "Falsehoods" article and the W3C page mentioned in the comments are good, valuable resources and I really hope developers across the world will take them into consideration. Then it is time to show your form to the client and he/she goes nuts! "People must enter their full name". Okay they can just write their full name into this text input. "No they must enter both first and last name". But not everyone in the world has a first and last name. Icelandic people? "Just require a space in the name". Like nobody in China has? "Don't argue with me, I am the client, require a space!!!ONE!" It's discussions like these I feel I can't really win. Most clients aren't technical, they are chock full of assumptions and they are not paying me to argue with them, they are paying me to require first name and last name and quick! I understand that education needs to happen but there are limits as to how much education your client accepts from you before he goes to a different shop.

viraptor 13y ago
Iceland has both first and last names, afaik. It's just the inheritance (first name + suffix becomes child's last name) and sorting that changes (usually by first rather than last name).
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  China has first names and last names too. I don't see why that client is a problem. Especially since I'd have no idea how to isolate the family name without having multiple fields or a space. It seems like either half could be 1-2 characters, so what do you do with a three character full name?
mcherm 13y ago
I try to explain to my clients that one of the advantages I bring (one of the reasons they pay me the "big bucks") is that I have knowledge about these kinds of things and I can bring that to the table. Of course, that means I have to be judicious. I am NOT going to tell the US bank that I work for that they should support people without a separate first and last name when that is FAR more rare among their customers than people who type wrong and SHOULD have entered a space, so checking for a space will annoy 2 customers while protecting 1000 from stupid typing errors.

viraptor 13y ago

Iceland has both first and last names, afaik. It's just the inheritance (first name + suffix becomes child's last name) and sorting that changes (usually by first rather than last name).

Dylan16807 13y ago
China has first names and last names too. I don't see why that client is a problem. Especially since I'd have no idea how to isolate the family name without having multiple fields or a space. It seems like either half could be 1-2 characters, so what do you do with a three character full name?

mcherm 13y ago

I try to explain to my clients that one of the advantages I bring (one of the reasons they pay me the "big bucks") is that I have knowledge about these kinds of things and I can bring that to the table. Of course, that means I have to be judicious. I am NOT going to tell the US bank that I work for that they should support people without a separate first and last name when that is FAR more rare among their customers than people who type wrong and SHOULD have entered a space, so checking for a space will annoy 2 customers while protecting 1000 from stupid typing errors.