Re: [Tools-discuss] Chinese name order versus surname and initial attributes in <author>

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

> 
> (The meta-problem is that we seem to be perpetually behind on fixing our XML
> specifications. At least, that's what it appears to me)

If we try to do semantic markup, and don’t think the semantics through, we'll need to do endless fixing.

In a similar case, postal addresses, we are in the process of deciding to get away from semantic markup and let everyone format their addresses the way they like them.  May seem like a regression, or like a liberation, depending on your perspective.

Personal names are really hard to get right [1].
RFCs make that much harder than it needs to be by employing initials, which are a computation on personal names that only makes sense if you don’t care about most of the people in the world.
If we got rid of that, we could reduce the need for semantic markup of names, and everything would be wonderful.  Depending on your perspective.

Grüße, Carsten

[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
Read on at least until you get down to number 40 :-)