xterra
So far, so good...
Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)
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arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I just overheard one of my colleagues saying "oh, yikes".
That does not sound like a good time.
That does not sound like a good time.
Blue Mountain
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Blue Mountain
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Strictly as a thought experiment I came up with a phonetic alphabet that used (mostly) the NATO alpahbet for lower case letters and the names of Canadian provinces and towns for upper case: Alberta, British Coiumbia, Charlottetown, Dawson, Edmunston, Fredericton, Gander, Halifax, Iqaluit, Jasper, Kentville, Labrador, Manitoba, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Québec, Regina, Saskatchewan, Tuktoyaktuk, Unionville, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Xanadu, Yukon, Zambia.
I used Nunavut for the letter N. Because New Brunswick and Nova Scotia didn't get their provincial names on the list I chose two towns from each of them: Edmunston and Fredericton, Halifax and Kentville. The Northwest Territories and Quebec got short-changed because I couldn't find decent Canadian place names for X and Z. There's no place in Canada simply named "Xavier," although I could use it and say it's Quebec's second contribution to the list.
For T I didn't use Toronto because ... reasons
Actually it was because I really wanted to use Tuktoyaktuk and doing so gave the Northwest Territories a contribution to the list, and Ontario had already contributed both O (Ontario) and U (Unionville.)For the lower case letters I replaced the NATO words "Labrador" and "Quebec" (because they're both uppercase letters in my alphabet) with "ladder" and "quarter."
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arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
So many mailbox jobs going into Pending tonight.
"I can't access Trim. Can you help me access Trim?"
"Uh, we're going to need a little more information about that." *pend*
"I'm getting an error trying to access Outlook."
"We need to remote access your computer. Please phone us." *pend*
It's been a long week.
"I can't access Trim. Can you help me access Trim?"
"Uh, we're going to need a little more information about that." *pend*
"I'm getting an error trying to access Outlook."
"We need to remote access your computer. Please phone us." *pend*
It's been a long week.
Wudang
BOFH
I like this anti-phonetic alphabet but miss the one I lost years back which had "a aisle" and "i isle".
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
A for 'orses
B for wellington
can't remember the rest
g for police
I'll look it up next week if noone else does.
B for wellington
can't remember the rest
g for police
I'll look it up next week if noone else does.
ISO 8601 also has the benefit that it specifies a year zero.
Guybrush Threepwood
Trainee Pirate
Wudang
BOFH
I, for one, like Roman numerals.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
They had two pieces of information: The date string itself, and the state that issued the ID. Knowing which state issued the ID tells them which format to assume for the date string.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
This was my thought when I red theprestige's post. Actually what occurred to me first was the relatively simple and not uncommon presentation of three boxes. One of which is labelled "Month" and allows the entry of 2 digits between 0 and 9 inclusive, one labelled "Day" with the same strictures, and one labelled "Year" which allows 4 digits.
It won't prevent a user from inputting the wrong values, but then neither will any of the other alternatives. It will, however, eliminate any confusion about which values are intended for which entries.
The problem, as presented, isn't a user issue. It is a programming one. Alternative date formats should not even be accepted. Allow three sets of numbers, labelled by the programmer, and let the format they are stored in be irrelevant to the user.
xterra
So far, so good...
Since we're discussing "standard" information like dates, how do your systems deal with names?
As an introduction to the complexity of the problem, here are two links:
This one is both shorter and more interesting:
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
This one is from a government, therefore longer, but nonethless useful:
https://www.fbiic.gov/public/2008/nov/Naming_practice_guide_UK_2006.pdf
As an introduction to the complexity of the problem, here are two links:
This one is both shorter and more interesting:
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
This one is from a government, therefore longer, but nonethless useful:
https://www.fbiic.gov/public/2008/nov/Naming_practice_guide_UK_2006.pdf
Slightly off topic, but a Korean colleague recently asked me why so many people in our country have the same names, "there are loads of Ians and Steves"
I did suggest that quite a few Koreans shared his surname.
xterra
So far, so good...
Look up Korean in the second link I posted. You'll find that his observation about personal names doesn't take into account the situation in Korean names.
Oh, yes, he said that there are basically about ten family names (I suppose that's better than surname, but I couldn't think of the appropriate word earlier).
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
And when you ask how old a Korean is do you get the Korean age or the other age?
Wudang
BOFH
And when parsing a list of free text strings that may contain Spanish people with 2 surnames. Some systems handle Chinese people putting family name first other don't.
CORed
Penultimate Amazing
Whereas, in Vietnam, everybody's family name is Nguyen.
I don't thinks that is actually true, but Nguyen seems to have a higher frequency than Smith, Jones and Johnson combined in the US.
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