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"New_York"
2

"New_York"

"New_York"

(OP)
I propose that all multiple word names, such as New York, South Africa, New Zealand, The Gambia, etc. be changed to include the underline character between them, ie. "United_States", to eliminate all spaces and the work you have to do when porting them from one data base to another when 25% of the country names take up two columns instead of one.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: "New_York"

Like this?

The_United_Kingdom_Of_Great_Britain_And_Northern_Ireland

RE: "New_York"

How about starting a movement to standardize as to how the data bases are created and have the data bases created with such underscores and hyphens (or any other standard you can agree to) to make them work as you want them, rather than changing the world history and books?

You also assumed that all names will be written in English only!!! Names have other uses than just to use on the data bases and in other languages than English.





RE: "New_York"

How about "Big_Inch"? Or your real name? If you do the places/countries, people would think their names would need it too.
Seems like a good idea, but I think it would be more complicated than it sounds.

Chris
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

RE: "New_York"

What happens to company names?

General Electric to General_Electric? Isn't this alreay common in data bases?

RE: "New_York"

The existence of a big inch implies a short inch why not only 25.4mm

RE: "New_York"

(OP)
I don't need an underscore, since its run together.

Why not a big inch?  There's a long ton and a short ton, not to mention table and tea spoons.   Anyway, that's short for "BigInch" as in worm, so not applicable.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: "New_York"

I would vote against such a proposal.  There are other approaches, including putting text field in quotes (such as the thread title, or using fixed-length formats, or using delimited files (not using a space as the delimiter), which allow for easy migration without the need to change anyone's name.

Names with an apostrophe, such as O'Connor, or O'Henry are far more problematic than spaces.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: "New_York"

(OP)
Its good for data bases, but I don't think it should only apply to data bases.  It would be OK for cities, companies too.  General_Electric doesn't look too problematic.  Or "Hong_Kong", "People's_Democratic_Republic_of_China".  For the long ones, there's already acceptable and standardizxed abbreviations that only take up one column.  No problem there.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: "New_York"

Why waste ink and effort to type extra sybol/letter when not needed. :)

You have not inidicated problems other than those with data bases. The names they way they are sound just fine to me.

There must be bigger problems with the names and data bases than how they are written. One of them is cities, companies that are renamed.


RE: "New_York"

(OP)
Exactly!  Good idea.  And.. why use quotes to bracket two-word names?  Why even use an underscore between?  We could just runthemtogether.  That way we might even save a tree with all the extra white space we wouldn't need when its time to print it too.

BigInchworm-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

RE: "New_York"

==> why use quotes to bracket two-word names?
To remove any ambiguity about the meaning of the space.

Unfortunately, we cannot take a space out of someone's name just because it might be convenient to do so.  A proper name is a proper name, spaces included.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: "New_York"

We should just assign a number to each country. That will reduce typing, improve clarity and brevity.

Sooooooooo. Who gets "1"?


Isn't an inch a unit of length? Then, it should be long inch and short inch? No?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."   
Albert Einstein
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RE: "New_York"

... who wants to live in "number 2"

cheers

RE: "New_York"

Sometimes it feels like I live in "number 2"!

Chris
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

RE: "New_York"

Aarrgghh .... self-correction ... "your" should have been "you're".

cheers

RE: "New_York"

Why not explain to the nuff-nuffs that program the databases that real people use names with more than one word in them?

Cheers

Greg Locock

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