From: Michael G Schwern Date: 21:21 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Phone numbers and form fields To log into T-Mobile's web site you give them your phone number. Ok. 123.456.7890 "12345678: Your phone number should be 10 digits. For example: 1234567890" How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes. I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g;
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 21:23 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! From the number of sites that have a fit about it, it's rocket science.
From: Darrell Fuhriman Date: 21:51 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > From the number of sites that have a fit about it, it's rocket science. Which is why it's #6 on the "Most Persistent Design Bugs". http://www.asktog.com/Bughouse/10MostPersistentBugs.html Darrell
From: Juerd Date: 21:24 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Michael G Schwern skribis 2005-03-03 16:21 (-0500): > I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes. > I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g; Phone numbers: don't strip a prefixed +. Postal codes: if it's international, don't strip anything. My postal code is 3316 GG, including the single space. Juerd
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi Date: 21:56 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Michael G Schwern wrote: > To log into T-Mobile's web site you give them your phone number. Ok. > > 123.456.7890 > > "12345678: Your phone number should be 10 digits. For example: 1234567890" > > How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! > > I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes. > I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g; Don't even get me started about places that do not understand non-US phone numbers. Or addresses - a particularly vile subspecies of this being forms that require entering a US state. That's why I am often a 112 year old granny from Alaska with the phone number of 555-1234.
From: velut luna. immanis. Date: 22:15 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:56:53 +0200, Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@xxx.xx> wrote: > Don't even get me started about places that do not understand non-US > phone numbers. Or addresses - a particularly vile subspecies of this > being forms that require entering a US state. That's why I am often > a 112 year old granny from Alaska with the phone number of 555-1234. Oh man. I get hives just thinking about this... but since we're sharing. I was on a data cleansing project about this time last year, using a popular piece of niche software designed to to intelligent data deduplication. This is something these guys had been doing for 15 years or so, internationally. And the headaches we ran into involving what is a State outsitde the US, and when it's required, and where to put County in places where the customer wanted to retain it, and trying to use a common set of db fields for this sort of thing and then running into places where State abbreviations had to be unique but collided with abbreviations used for counties, or 'states' in other countries, or provinces and any variation thereof..... Hives. HIVES I tell you. You'd think in 15 years they'd have worked out an intelligent plan for how to deal with That Sort Of Thing.
From: Juerd Date: 23:27 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields velut luna. immanis. skribis 2005-03-03 14:15 (-0800): > You'd think in 15 years they'd have worked out an intelligent plan for > how to deal with That Sort Of Thing. They have. In HTML, it's called <textarea>. Juerd
From: Rhesa Rozendaal Date: 22:33 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote: > > Don't even get me started about places that do not understand non-US > phone numbers. Or addresses - a particularly vile subspecies of this > being forms that require entering a US state. That's why I am often > a 112 year old granny from Alaska with the phone number of 555-1234. > I just moved to Norway. My address has no street name, and no house number (it's a small village, so the postman knows me personally). Try ordering anything off the web, it can't be done. Rhesa
From: Philip Newton Date: 05:41 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:33:24 +0100, Rhesa Rozendaal <rhesa@xxxxxx.xx> wrote: > I just moved to Norway. My address has no street name, and no house > number (it's a small village, so the postman knows me personally). Try > ordering anything off the web, it can't be done. I can only vaguely imagine the pain that people must go through who have only one name, none of this "family name" business, when filling out forms that require everyone to have a given name and a family name. What do they put? "Suharto Suharto"? Though the more hateful ones assume that everyone has a middle initial... Cheers,
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi Date: 05:58 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Philip Newton wrote: > On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:33:24 +0100, Rhesa Rozendaal <rhesa@xxxxxx.xx> wrote: > >>I just moved to Norway. My address has no street name, and no house >>number (it's a small village, so the postman knows me personally). Try >>ordering anything off the web, it can't be done. > > > I can only vaguely imagine the pain that people must go through who > have only one name, none of this "family name" business, when filling > out forms that require everyone to have a given name and a family > name. What do they put? "Suharto Suharto"? I have a Tamil colleague who has only name, his own, I guess it counts as "first name". This causes him no end of fun in forms and databases. He has settled on a solution where he uses the initial of his father's "first name" as his "family name". > Though the more hateful ones assume that everyone has a middle initial... > > Cheers,
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 07:45 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 06:41:43AM +0100, Philip Newton wrote: > Though the more hateful ones assume that everyone has a middle initial... Or Apple's Address Book's opposing hate: nobody has a middle initial. Everyone has just two names.
From: Philip Newton Date: 07:49 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 23:45:10 -0800, Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 06:41:43AM +0100, Philip Newton wrote: > > Though the more hateful ones assume that everyone has a middle initial... > > Or Apple's Address Book's opposing hate: nobody has a middle initial. > Everyone has just two names. And all names are written in titlecase -- that is, first letter capital, all following letters lowercase. Like Brian Foy, for example. Or Levar O'brian or Leann Mcdonald or Maurizio La Rocca or Michael Van Den Bergh. Because people don't know how to spell their own name. Cheers,
From: velut luna. immanis. Date: 17:43 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 08:49:11 +0100, Philip Newton <philip.newton@xxxxx.xxx> wrote: > Or Levar O'brian or Leann Mcdonald or Maurizio La Rocca or Michael Van > Den Bergh. > > Because people don't know how to spell their own name. I've got an Irish last name (O'Brien) and two middle names. Most people don't care enough about their two middle names to understand why it's so irritating to be forced to choose between them throughout your life. But I like my middle names. But, in the long run, it's one of those "You have two? Huh...." things, as opposed to some of the other stuff I've read here... "Sir, would you please step out of the car and turn around very slowly. This Mutant Commie Traitor ID of yours is clearly not clearance Red."
From: Hakim Date: 17:49 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields velut luna. immanis. wrote: > I've got an Irish last name (O'Brien) and two middle names. > > Most people don't care enough about their two middle names to > understand why it's so irritating to be forced to choose between them > throughout your life. But I like my middle names. My first name is commonly (ie always) shortened to Hakim. My mum who knew the convention of underlining the common name did this on my birth certificate, but the registrars assumed this meant it had to be split to 2 names. On the few really official documents (passport, mortgage etc.) where I have the whole thing registered, it looks like Hakim is my middle name, and my first name is the prefix "Abdel". Luckily, in Britain there's no central registration so on all my other details, even bank accounts, this isn't a problem, -- osfameron
From: Nicholas Clark Date: 18:08 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 09:43:00AM -0800, velut luna. immanis. wrote: > I've got an Irish last name (O'Brien) and two middle names. Aha. You're one of those evil SQL injection attack types. :-) Nothing to do with hateful software, or hatefully ignorant programmers, and definitely your (and your forbears') fault. Nicholas Clark
From: Tom Insam Date: 09:03 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Mar 4, 2005, at 7:45, Michael G Schwern wrote: > On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 06:41:43AM +0100, Philip Newton wrote: >> Though the more hateful ones assume that everyone has a middle >> initial... > > Or Apple's Address Book's opposing hate: nobody has a middle initial. > Everyone has just two names. you can give people middle names. It's just that the interface for it is really badly designed... tom
From: David Wheeler Date: 15:27 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Mar 3, 2005, at 11:45 PM, Michael G Schwern wrote: > Or Apple's Address Book's opposing hate: nobody has a middle initial. > Everyone has just two names. Card -> Add Field -> Middle Name Regards, David
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 16:20 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 07:27:09AM -0800, David Wheeler wrote: > On Mar 3, 2005, at 11:45 PM, Michael G Schwern wrote: > > >Or Apple's Address Book's opposing hate: nobody has a middle initial. > >Everyone has just two names. > > Card -> Add Field -> Middle Name Seeing as how any empty field is hidden in the final result (a nice feature, BTW), WHY DO THEY HIDE THIS FURTHER?! I bet if it was Steve Abercrombe Jobs it wouldn't be hidden. PS Thank you
From: David Wheeler Date: 23:57 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Mar 4, 2005, at 8:20 AM, Michael G Schwern wrote: > Seeing as how any empty field is hidden in the final result (a nice > feature, > BTW), WHY DO THEY HIDE THIS FURTHER?! You can have all the fields revealed in the edit interface forever by checking each off. > I bet if it was Steve Abercrombe Jobs it wouldn't be hidden. Yes, quite. > PS Thank you :-) D
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 00:22 on 05 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 03:57:25PM -0800, David Wheeler wrote: > >Seeing as how any empty field is hidden in the final result (a nice > >feature, > >BTW), WHY DO THEY HIDE THIS FURTHER?! > > You can have all the fields revealed in the edit interface forever by > checking each off. That doesn't answer the musical question: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY?! And oh great, you have to turn on the optional fields for each individual card. Fortunately it seems you can "Edit Template" to turn these additional fields on for all cards.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 14:44 on 05 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > I bet if it was Steve Abercrombe Jobs it wouldn't be hidden. Maybe, maybe not. Was this originally an Apple product, or something they borged (like iTunes, for example, which violates their HIG in a variety of ways)?
From: Abigail Date: 08:27 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields --TybLhxa8M7aNoW+V Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 06:41:43AM +0100, Philip Newton wrote: > On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:33:24 +0100, Rhesa Rozendaal <rhesa@xxxxxx.xx> wro= te: > > I just moved to Norway. My address has no street name, and no house > > number (it's a small village, so the postman knows me personally). Try > > ordering anything off the web, it can't be done. >=20 > I can only vaguely imagine the pain that people must go through who > have only one name, none of this "family name" business, when filling > out forms that require everyone to have a given name and a family > name. What do they put? "Suharto Suharto"? Yup. Try signing up for a conference as "Abigail", it's amazing how many sign up forms won't accept that. Recently, I used a very long rant about that as my last name. The form accepted it - but the software behind it truncated it to 20 characters. Hate, hate, hate. Abigail --TybLhxa8M7aNoW+V Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCKBv5BOh7Ggo6rasRAhzSAJ9wxnmD7E4qU2tfS2jDEdySLGJMTwCgivTI Z+RyR7JM5+Ad6rvax4UZcWc= =Vo+5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --TybLhxa8M7aNoW+V--
From: Abigail
Date: 23:09 on 03 Mar 2005
Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields
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On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 11:56:53PM +0200, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
>=20
> Don't even get me started about places that do not understand non-US
> phone numbers. Or addresses - a particularly vile subspecies of this
> being forms that require entering a US state. That's why I am often
> a 112 year old granny from Alaska with the phone number of 555-1234.
Now, don't get the impression it's just software suffering from this.
A few years ago, I was living in the US. I wanted to rent a U-HAUL truck.
Since I was living in PA, and since I had figured out that, as a PA
resident, I did *not* need a US driving license, I kept using my Dutch
one, although I had a US picture ID.
So, I was there to do the paperwork for the truck. The guy asked for my
driving license. Knowing that USians often ask for a driving license when
they mean ID, I asked whether he wanted to see my driving license (which,
considering I was about to rent a truck also makes sense), or my ID. He
wanted the latter, but said he wanted to see a driving license.
So, I handed over mine (which is a large pink wad, totally different from
a US one), telling him it was a license from the Netherlands. His brain
almost overheated to make sense of the license, finally resulting in the
question:
What is the state code for The Netherlands?
Abigail
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From: Ann Barcomb Date: 08:23 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Also not software, but another story of the inability to deal with data from outside the US... On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Abigail wrote: [American difficulties with Dutch driver's licenses] > What is the state code for The Netherlands? I remember when I was living in the US and my Dutch boyfriend came to visit me. He wanted to try American beer, to see if it was as horrible as everyone claimed. I was 20 at the time (under the American legal drinking age), so I was unable to get him some. But he was 24 (over it). We were buying a bunch of groceries and two bottles of a not especially good beer. They asked to see his ID. He tried his driver's license, but they weren't accepting any of that foreign nonsense. So he tried his passport. "I'm sorry sir, but a passport is not a valid form of identification." I would have left at that point, but he wanted to complain to that manager. The manager upheld the cashier at every point, telling him that if he wanted to get the beer, he would need to get a Washington state ID or driver's license. Guess what valid form of ID you can show to get a state ID? ...a passport.
From: Darrell Fuhriman Date: 16:19 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > "I'm sorry sir, but a passport is not a valid form of identification." This person was likely very wrong on that front. > Guess what valid form of ID you can show to get a state ID? ...a passport. Ah, the lovely land of illogical ID requirements. When I went to get my passport a number of years ago, I didn't have a Driver's License, but I did have a state ID card. That wasn't good enough. I had to have a friend come in with me, present *his* Driver's License and take an oath that he had known me for more than some number of years. Now the amount of identification needed to get a State ID is *exactly the same* as that to get a Driver's License. The only difference is that you have to pass a test to get the DL. Of course, *those* requirements are fantastically small. (Though they may have changed in the last few years.) Darrell
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 16:42 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 08:19:32AM -0800, Darrell Fuhriman wrote: > When I went to get my passport a number of years ago, I didn't > have a Driver's License, but I did have a state ID card. That > wasn't good enough. I had to have a friend come in with me, > present *his* Driver's License and take an oath that he had known > me for more than some number of years. > > Now the amount of identification needed to get a State ID is > *exactly the same* as that to get a Driver's License. The only > difference is that you have to pass a test to get the DL. Its the US. If you don't drive a car you must be some sort of hippie commie terrorist like me.
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 17:41 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Darrell Fuhriman wrote: > Ah, the lovely land of illogical ID requirements. > > When I went to get my passport a number of years ago, I didn't > have a Driver's License, but I did have a state ID card. That > wasn't good enough. I had to have a friend come in with me, > present *his* Driver's License and take an oath that he had known > me for more than some number of years. [...] ...to be fair, it isn't just the Americans. In the Netherlands if you've never been married you can get an official document to this effect. In the US it is different; you only have a document if you have married. When I needed this document, I had to produce the legal substitute. This meant going to the American embassy in Amsterdam, where I showed my ID and signed a form wherein I made the claim that I wasn't married. Someone else signed as well, witnessing that she had watched me sign the paper. Of course she couldn't verify that what I said was true, because she had no way to know that. Then I had to take the paper to Den Haag to a Dutch ministry that attached a document verifying that the person from the embassy who had witnessed my signing was someone known to the Dutch government and authorised to witness the event. It would be funny if it hadn't taken me 8 hours and cost me over 25 bucks in fees.
From: Simon Batistoni Date: 01:53 on 09 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On 04/03/05 08:19 -0800, Darrell Fuhriman wrote: > > "I'm sorry sir, but a passport is not a valid form of identification." > > This person was likely very wrong on that front. > > > Guess what valid form of ID you can show to get a state ID? ...a passport. > > Ah, the lovely land of illogical ID requirements. Just catching up on this thread. To be completely fair, the requirements aren't *totally* illogical (and I'm speaking as a UK citizen who just moved to California...) Firstly, you need to understand that Federal and State governments are hugely, massively, extremely keen on ensuring that Minors don't get beer or cigarettes. What's happened here is one of those classic security trade-offs: the more stringent you make the security requirements, the more likely that some legitimate users (or in this case beer-buyers) are going to be given access to the system (or beer). What Government here has decided is that it's acceptable for some legitimate buyers to be denied their beer, if it reduces the chance of minors getting some. What this means is that the officially accepted legal form of ID in most states is a DMV-issued licence or ID card (that's certainly the case in CA), and this status extends to transactions such as beer-buying. There is a logical reason for this. You can't reasonably expect a liquor-store clerk to reliably assess the legitimacy of, say, a UK passport. They may have seen 5 or 6 before in their life. And if you're going to accept a UK passport, you're going to have to accept every passport. I doubt many people are familiar with every passport format in the world. Whereas everyone's familiar with the look and feel of their state Driving Licence/ID, so the chances of forgeries slipping through is reduced. That's the theory anyway. And if a liquor store is duped by well-faked State ID, they're unlikely to be punished. If they serve alcohol to a minor based on a passport, they're toast. Having said that, I didn't have trouble using my passport once in the month before I got my CA drivers' licence. But then, those establishments *chose* to accept my ID (perhaps on the basis that I really don't look *that* young). And, in passing, US beer isn't actually as bad as its reputation. In a weird piece of serendipity, I wrote this last night, before I read this thread... : http://hitherto.net/5371/archives/2005/03/why_busch_is_ba_1.html
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 02:54 on 09 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 01:53:28AM +0000, Simon Batistoni wrote: > Having said that, I didn't have trouble using my passport once in the > month before I got my CA drivers' licence. But then, those > establishments *chose* to accept my ID (perhaps on the basis that I > really don't look *that* young). Speaking of illogical, the rules in many states are that you must check ids of people who *look* under the age of 2x. I'm not sure what the legal definition is for looking a certain age. > And, in passing, US beer isn't actually as bad as its reputation. In a > weird piece of serendipity, I wrote this last night, before I read > this thread... : > http://hitherto.net/5371/archives/2005/03/why_busch_is_ba_1.html There's actually quite an abundance of most excellent beers here in the states. Sitting as I am in Portland "American beer mecca", Oregon where you can get a pint of something lovely at any local *coffeehouse* I'm constantly reminded of how good American beer can be. Particularly when they're trying their hands at foreign types. Take New Belgium Brewery [1] for example. Their standard beer, Fat Tire, is a toasty amber ale. 1554 is a smooth black ale going back to, well, 1554. I can pick up a 6-pack of New Belgium beers for $7 at any local supermarket. Then there's Rogue [1] who wins so many medals every year they could start a mint. Shakespeare Stout is, dare I say it, better than Guiness. And for the not feint of pallette, Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard Ale which is basically strong barleywine. Trouble is the average American beer is so much pisswater. Pilsners designed to be produced and consumed in large quanties. The whole idea of a light beer, so you can drink more, is American. Your average bar or resturaunt will offer various Busch/Bud/Coors swill, Rolling Rock and, if you're lucky, Sam Adams and Guiness... in a bottle. At OSCON we will endevour to correct America's poor image with regard to ales. [1] http://www.newbelgium.com/ [2] http://www.rogue.com/ [3] http://www.arrogantbastard.com/
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 04:20 on 09 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > [2] http://www.rogue.com/ Mmm, Dead Guy Ale, IIRC...
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 03:07 on 09 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > http://hitherto.net/5371/archives/2005/03/why_busch_is_ba_1.html Mmmm. Fat Tire.
From: Darrell Fuhriman Date: 07:11 on 09 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > What Government here has decided is that it's acceptable for some > legitimate buyers to be denied their beer, if it reduces the chance of > minors getting some. Well, no, what we have here is a grocery clerk who was mis-informed about a passport being perfectly valid ID in the state of Washington. > What this means is that the officially accepted legal form of ID in > most states is a DMV-issued licence or ID card (that's certainly the > case in CA), and this status extends to transactions such as > beer-buying. Well, yes, but I've also never heard of a state that *doesn't* take a passport. > > liquor-store clerk to reliably assess the legitimacy of, say, a UK > passport. They may have seen 5 or 6 before in their life. And if On the contrary, most bars have a book that shows sample IDs from a variety of places. Besides that, it's an affirmative defense in most, if not all, states, that you made a reasonable effort to verify the validity of the identification. > State ID, they're unlikely to be punished. If they serve alcohol to a > minor based on a passport, they're toast. I *seriously* doubt that. > And, in passing, US beer isn't actually as bad as its reputation. In a > Some of it isn't. But then, I live where the beer is actually *good*. The rest of you poor saps probably don't. :) Darrell
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 13:47 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields > So, I handed over mine (which is a large pink wad, totally different from > a US one), telling him it was a license from the Netherlands. His brain > almost overheated to make sense of the license, finally resulting in the > question: > > What is the state code for The Netherlands? This sort of thing can work for you. Policeman: "Do you know what you did just then?" Me: "Yes, officer, I'm sorry..." Policeman: "License..." I hand over Australian license. I see the "brain freeze" response as the police officer thinks about putting some random foreign junk on his form. Policeman: "... thank you, please drive more carefully in the future." Officer drives off, I get no ticket...
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 16:46 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 07:47:01AM -0600, Peter da Silva wrote: > This sort of thing can work for you. > > Policeman: "Do you know what you did just then?" > Me: "Yes, officer, I'm sorry..." > Policeman: "License..." > I hand over Australian license. I see the "brain freeze" response as > the police officer thinks about putting some random foreign junk on his form. > Policeman: "... thank you, please drive more carefully in the future." > Officer drives off, I get no ticket... New York state driver's licenses used to have this property when used out of state. The ID was a complex sequence of about 25 letters and numbers. Most out of state police would look at it and send you on your way rather than try to cram it all into the tiny little field on their ticket. Apparently, though I've never confirmed this, your ID number contained lots of physical information about you so a knowledgable NY state trooper could look at your ID and know things like your age, height, eye color, etc.. It was an anti-fake id measure. "I'm sure you're old enough to purchase beer here, Mr. Johnson. But what's it like being a 104 year old woman?"
From: Philip Newton Date: 05:39 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:56:53 +0200, Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@xxx.xx> wrote: > forms that require entering a US state. There seem to be two variants of those - the "better" ones (and I do use that word loosely) merely make a it a required field, possibly two characters long. The more hateful ones give you a drop-down list to choose from; if they're especially "enlightened" they may also include Canadian provinces, and/or APO codes. Well, it so happens that Germany has two-digit ISO abbreviations for its states... but they're never used when sending paper mail. Nor should the postal code (which, luckily perhaps, is five digits since the reunification) come after the town: 21077 Hamburg, not "Hamburg, HH 21077". Idiots. Why not provide a free-form text field that lets people enter as many rows as they need[*], in whatever form the loval post office expects? Probably because users are idiots, too. [*] English addresses are especially infamous for occasionally requiring six or more rows of address. Cheers,
From: Abigail Date: 08:29 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields --idY8LE8SD6/8DnRI Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 06:39:26AM +0100, Philip Newton wrote: >=20 > Why not provide a free-form text field that lets people enter as many > rows as they need[*], in whatever form the loval post office expects? Because they store the results in a database, and the database requires all the fields. With free-form text fields, marketeers have a harder time doing data mining. > Probably because users are idiots, too. That goes without saying. Abigail --idY8LE8SD6/8DnRI Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCKBxgBOh7Ggo6rasRAg9+AKC3XZ2v0TgYW9/yimT+qaiYNC+//gCgsTpx 71JxsWplPhnlXQ2oG+R2Fmk= =MmNz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --idY8LE8SD6/8DnRI--
From: Chris Devers Date: 15:09 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Philip Newton wrote: > Why not provide a free-form text field that lets people enter as many > rows as they need[*], in whatever form the loval post office expects? Because, as noted, free-form text doesn't fit snugly into predefined database fields. The correct approach, it seems, is two forms: the default (for USian businesses) may assume an American style address, but it has to provide a prominent link to a free-form form for non-US addresses. (Hell, if they were really clever, they could use a radio button and CSS trickery to put the two forms in the same spot on the same page, and only display the one that's the visitor finds appropriate...) But seeing as most US businesses assume that they're only doing business in the US (which isn't completely unreasonable, as it is a huge country and it doesn't always occur to people that there might be customers beyond the mysterious borders), this will probably rarely happen...
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 14:36 on 05 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Oh yes, storing my brother's address in Japan in my PDA was a challenge. I finally attached it as a note.
From: Aaron Crane Date: 11:01 on 07 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Philip Newton writes: > English addresses are especially infamous for occasionally requiring > six or more rows of address. Seems reasonable enough to me: Flat NN Building Name NN Street Name Locality POSTTOWN County Postcode I've recently moved back to Edinburgh. My address here is nice and short: 28/3 Street Name Edinburgh Postcode It's the "28/3" bit that gets people. It's actually fairly sensible: the building is number 28 on my street, and I'm in flat 3 in the building. It's a common pattern round here, so if you need to give your address to someone local, they know exactly what you mean if you say "twenty-eight three". But people in national call centres are always baffled. "Twenty-eight slash three, Street Name." "Twenty-eight flat three?" "No, just a slash character -- a diagonal line." "Really?" "Yes, really. Use your postcode address lookup; it's in the list you get." Fortunately, I haven't yet encountered a website I might want to buy things from that would mangle it to "283 Street Name".
From: Hakim Date: 11:16 on 07 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields Aaron Crane wrote: > > I've recently moved back to Edinburgh. My address here is nice and > short: > > 28/3 Street Name > Edinburgh > Postcode > > It's the "28/3" bit that gets people. It's actually fairly sensible: > the building is number 28 on my street, and I'm in flat 3 in the > building. It's a common pattern round here, so if you need to give your > address to someone local, they know exactly what you mean if you say > "twenty-eight three". Edinburgh also has the pattern GFR (Ground floor - right), which also confuses people. -- osfameron
From: Tony Bowden Date: 22:04 on 03 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 04:21:16PM -0500, Michael G Schwern wrote: > How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! > I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes. > I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g; Ah, so my postal code is now 42. Tony
From: Philip Newton Date: 05:35 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:21:16 -0500, Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> wrote: > To log into T-Mobile's web site you give them your phone number. Ok. > > 123.456.7890 > > "12345678: Your phone number should be 10 digits. For example: 1234567890" > > How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! > > I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes. > I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g; Argh. Hate this, too. In my case in particular, German bank sort codes. Which are eight digits long and are conventionally displayed as NNN NNN NN, including the spaces. And being Germans, they even have a DIN standard saying so. (Much, I believe, as American social security numbers are conventionally displayed in certain groups.) But does my online banking service let me enter a bank sort code in that format? Well, it does, but that's pretty recent. Before about three months ago or so, it only accepted NNNNNNNN: eight digits, no spaces. Was especially fun when copy-and-pasting a sort code from, say, an email asking you to send them money, and only the first "NNN NNN " would be pasted since the field was limited to eight characters. Hello? It's only *the* standard way to write sort codes and you don't let them enter them in that fashion? Cheers,
From: Phil Pennock Date: 17:15 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On 2005-03-04 at 06:35 +0100, Philip Newton wrote: > But does my online banking service let me enter a bank sort code in > that format? Well, it does, but that's pretty recent. Before about > three months ago or so, it only accepted NNNNNNNN: eight digits, no > spaces. On those rare occasions when my bank's online banking site is up and functioning, it's actually fairly decent in some regards. Nice to have a hardware token to do challenge/response too. But when you've been living in The Netherlands for five years and have learnt the Dutch names for various financial terms, especially those which don't have direct equivalents in common use in Britain, it's rather unsettling to log in one day and find yourself presented with online banking in English. Okay, the bank has a record to say that I'm a furrineer. Great. Now, can you let me switch the interface back to Dutch so that I don't need to figure out which English term has been chosen to match overschrijvingen? No? What, nowhere in all these pages of options is there an option to go back to Dutch? What, you had to, at the same time, go and change the options and ordering and introduce new ones so I can't just automatically click in the same place? It's rather strange to be snarling at a website with hate because it insists upon forcing you to use your native tongue. I'm still not used to the English. It's inconsistent too. I _know_ that the ATMs can present English menus because if a foreign card is put in, they offer up a language choice. So how come the bank can record information about the account but not offer a way to press a button for English when the card is in the ATM. Not that I want that _now_, especially since they'd probably force it instead of presenting the choice. :^( If I wanted to be fair to the bank (and I don't, since they charge an annual fee for the online service so it should frigging well work reliably, instead of always being down ... but at least these days they tell you the site is down _before_ login, not afterwards; that is, when it's not the page where you'd log in which is broken) then ... oh sod it, I don't even want to be fair enough to make a nice point now. </petty>
From: David Cantrell
Date: 14:27 on 04 Mar 2005
Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 04:21:16PM -0500, Michael G Schwern wrote:
> I see this all the time. Phone numbers. Credit card numbers. Postal codes.
> I mean, christ. $input =~ s/\D+//g;
And many of the places where that is done, I bet it's done like this ...
if($input !~ /^\d{10}$/) {
$input =~ s/\D+//g;
}
From: Darrell Fuhriman Date: 16:29 on 04 Mar 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields So, as it happens, I was reading Bill Bryson's, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" on the way to work this morning. His essay "Lost in Cyberland" was stunningly apropos. After trying to send a Fax from the US to the UK and having no luck: "Three weeks later -- this is true -- we received a phone bill with $68 in charges for calls to Algiers. Subsequent inquiries revealed that the people who had written the software for the fax program had not considered the possibility of overseas transmissions. The program was designed to read seven-digit phone numbers with three-digit area codes. Confronted with any other combination of numbers, it went into a sort of dial-a-bedouin default mode. "I also discovered that the electronic address book had a similar aversion to addresses without standard U.S. zip codes, rendering it all but useless for my purposes, and that the answering machine function had a habit of coming on in the middle of conversations. "For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless, and then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a dangerously perfect match." Darrell
From: Earle Martin Date: 20:03 on 01 Apr 2005 Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 04:21:16PM -0500, Michael G Schwern wrote: > How hard is it to strip out non-digits from input, people?! Just read this on AskTog[0] and felt it deserved to be preserved along with this thread: > In 1960, I worked at Bank of America on the ERMA project. ERMA was the > worlds first electronic check processing computer. It had core memory - > ferrite beads suspended from wires - and vacuum tubes. The memory was > infinitesimal - less than that of the original Apple One, and the speed was > hundreds of times slower. Programmers in those days did not throw away bits > or clock cycles. Both were precious commodities. > > Guess what? It's now a different century! Computers have what can only be > described as gobs of memory, along with blinding speed, speed so extreme > that only the finest operating system developers in the world can bring them > to a crawl. > > So why can't I input my credit card number the way it appears on the card? > Why do I have to suck the extra spaces out, making it all but impossible to > re-scan it for errors? We're talking three spaces here, three bytes. We're > talking a loop to scan for those characters that can be accomplished in a > couple of microseconds. > > What possible reason exists today for writing third-rate code that was no > longer acceptable by the late 1970s? How much money is your company willing > to lose to put up with it? When are you going to demand that people be able > to enter dates in the way they are most comfortable, enter credit card > numbers in the way they are most comfortable, and enter social security > numbers with the hyphens as either God or Roosevelt intended? [0] http://asktog.com/columns/062top10ReasonsToNotShop.html
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