

We have an employee whose last name is Null (2010) - gojko
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-can-i-pass-the-string-null-through-wsdl-soap-from-actionscript-3-to-a-co?rq=1

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jzwinck
We had a system to censor users' IMs. Customers could configure a forbidden
word list, or use a default one that had some seemingly obvious swear words.
That was fine, until you realize that a global customer base has at least one
person with almost any imaginable word in their names.

The North Koreans even made a phallic missile called No-dong. There is just no
way to apply English assumptions about what words are across names. Oh, and
the South Koreans have a town called Nodong-dong
([http://www.agoda.com/city/nodong-dong-
kr.html](http://www.agoda.com/city/nodong-dong-kr.html)).

~~~
kalleboo
In Swedish, the word for the number 6 is the same as the word for sex.

~~~
matt__rose
A friend had a ball cap from pittsburgh university that said "Pitt" This was
very funny to my swedish friends

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runarb
Old, but good. Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140631)

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iMark
It didn't affect any code, but once I upon a time I worked with a programmer
called Rem.

On his last day at the company I wore a t-shirt which said "No comment"

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Daviey
Mandatory somewhat related XKCD: [http://xkcd.com/327/](http://xkcd.com/327/)

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andrewaylett
The issue is that actual null values are stringified as "Null". It doesn't
take much for someone to decide to just convert all string instances of "Null"
back to the null value, despite that leading to issues.

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wpietri
Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr, tells a story about one particular airline
she just can't fly on. The system lets her buy tickets just fine, but when she
shows up to fly, they've never heard of her.

I guess that's one way to solve the test data vs real data problem.

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baldfat
I "almost", AKA thought of it but didn't tell my wife, made my son's middle
name Null. It even entered my mind when I was handed the Birth Information
card. I knew it was funny but not worth the eventual price I would pay when I
got caught.

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Pxtl
We have static typing and dynamic typing and duck typing... is there a name
for this crap where stuff gets converted willy-nilly without your say-so?
Drunk typing?

~~~
gamegoblin
Isn't that just the definition of "weak typing"? When you can do stuff like
object + string + number and get an answer.

~~~
tel
PHP typing

~~~
gamegoblin
JavaScript and Perl, too.

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deathanatos
Does SOAP (or WSDL?) or whatever he is using not store type information with
the value? Take JSON, which has null (the actual value) and "Null" (a string)
- it isn't ambiguous which you mean.

I feel like if my serialization format couldn't differentiate between those,
that'd be a deal-breaker.

~~~
jonny_eh
Sounds about right to me. That's why I use JSON, it's much more sensible than
SOAP.

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ctz
We had a similar problem with an old internal IRC bot written in TCL. Someone
joined the company with the initials 'nan' (which was never equal to 'nan'
because NaN != NaN). The bot never worked for them.

~~~
gnu8
You're calling that a company now? Where the fuck are my options?

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myronbolitar
I graduated high school with a kid whose last name was Null. It would
occasionally cause issues with the school's computers. He learned to use it to
his advantage.

~~~
lostlogin
Could you give an example please? I love this stuff.

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flexy_man
I remember this post, with a similar title being posted on HN in the beginning
of August and got about 550 points in 20 hours. :)

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fn
Is he a dev?

~~~
jsoo4
Dev is a real first name. BRB, changing name to Dev Null.

~~~
fn
I'm beyond surprised it took this long for someone to get it... ;-)

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gchokov
Old, but golden.

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antonwinter
we had a job applicant who's project was called drop table;

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mseepgood
old

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tempodox
Har, har, har.

