Assumptions when validating user data (Re: [Techtalk] SQL learning pointers)

[Judith Elaine Bush]

On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 12:23:10PM +1100, Mary wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 02, 2002, Kai MacTane wrote:
> > Actually, the way I generally handle this sort of thing is to *only*
> > give them the characters they need. Who the hell has a semicolon in
> > their name?  If the field is "Phone Number", they get 0-9, ( ) and -,
> > plus space. That's it. If the user enters anything containing any
> > other character, they get a message asking them to enter a valid phone
> > number.
> 
> On a tangent, you need to be fairly careful with assumptions like these.
> 

I have had my email address rejected more than once because someone
decided a hyphen was illegal in a domain name.

On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 12:23:10PM +1100, Mary also wrote:
>
> I know a couple of people who have only one name, ie no surname, or no
> first name if you think of it the other way. They regularly have
> difficulty with computers or forms that require two names.

I was just marveling at the names of the children of some friends of
mine. The mother and father had different last names, so their
daughter's name is First Middle Fathers_surname Mothers_surname. I
suspect that respecting names like that will become more important as
fairly soon.

And i was struggling the other day. My spouse and i don't share the
same last name, and i wanted the gift we were sending to his mother
have both our names on the label -- Or just his, even. But the from
was linked to the billing and i was using a card in only my name.
Whatever, but i would have happily entered "Firstname Lastname;
SpouseFirst SpouseLast" given the chance.....

....

just a button for today....

judith