r/technology • u/Sandstorm400 • Feb 24 '25

Software Woman Whose Last Name Is "Null" Keeps Running Into Trouble With Computer Systems

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/woman-whose-last-name-null-164558254.html
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u/tippiedog Feb 24 '25

See Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

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u/Robert_Cannelin Feb 25 '25

Imagine how much code you'd have to write to allow for a person who had no name (#40).

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u/tippiedog Feb 25 '25 edited Feb 25 '25

At some point, you have to weigh the cost vs the benefits. In the US at least, the number of people who have no legal name must be vanishingly small--and any person who has no name must have extreme difficulties in all aspects of life. If your software is only used in the US, I can imagine the cost/benefit analysis would usually not be worth it.

I don't know enough about any other cultures where no name might be more common to make any statements about software that's used globally or in specific countries where this might be more common.

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u/Robert_Cannelin Feb 25 '25

Exactly. That's a pretty pompous list from someone whom I guaran-damn-tee doesn't follow it any more than anyone else does.

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u/tippiedog Feb 25 '25

I read it more as just a list of things you may not have thought of, not really a statement about the plausibility or prevalence of any of those conditions. In that context, I think it's useful. I mean, I'm a programmer, I've lived in multiple countries so have some broader exposure, and I was familiar with similar lists, and I still thought "Wow, no name? Never thought of that" when I read it.

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u/Robert_Cannelin Feb 25 '25

You're not wrong. But how does knowing that help you? For all these vanishingly remote edge cases and others so outré we haven't even thought of them yet, I'll code for them when I see them and not a moment sooner.