Re: Bugs in Palm-to-Evo sync

[James Moody <jemoody home com>]

I've seen this as well. However, I believe the ONLY way to fix this
is not to try to convert multiple first names into a first name and
middle name, as you propose below. The only way this will work is
based on the following. Both directions demonstrated.


	Palm Side	Evo Side
	---------	--------
	Given Names =>	First Name
	(nothing)   =>	Middle Name (empty)
	Last Name   =>	Last Name

	Palm Side	Evo Side
	---------	--------
	Given Names <=	First Name + Middle Name
	Last Name   <=	Last Name

This, of course, demonstrates a deficiency in Evolution. Namely,
nearly every application I've seen has discounted the idea of using
"Middle Names" as a component of a name. Besides the fact that it is
not always possible to determine exactly what the middle name should
be (due to compound first names, multiple middle names, etc.), cultural
variations make it impossible to assume that most of the people
in the world even have names that can be talked about in such terms.

The fix above should work, but has the necessary deficiency that
if you have a name "First Middle Last" on Evolution, sync it to the palm,
where it becomes "First Middle, Last", change it on the palm to become
"First Foo, Last", and then sync it back to Evolution, it will become
"First Foo, Last" (i.e. an empty middle name). This I believe is a necessary
evil.

I strongly suggest that Evolution change its name structure to eliminate
middle names.

As an aside (and a case study), consider the genealogical format GEDCOM
(www.gedcom.com), which long ago decided that it was hopeless to assume
that you can do anything with a name other than, perhaps, denote a
substring of it that should be considered a "surname" (used for searching
and sorting). (By the way, this also applies to name prefixes such as
"Sir" or "General" and suffixes such as "II" and "Jr.").

My 2 cents,

james

On Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 05:34:14PM -0700, Philip Andrew wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> I just sync'ed to Evolution 0.15.99 using gnome-pilot, and a large 
> number of my address book records got seriously munged.  I suspect the 
> fault is on the Evo side, but I'm sending this both places just in case 
> (and as a warning?).
> 
> Any record where the "First Name" field in my Palm contained multiple 
> tokens got messed up on the second (and subsequent) sync.  For example 
> (names changed to protect the yada-yada-yada),
> 
>    Ewing, Bobby & Pam
>    1 Southfork Ranch Drive
>    Braddock, TX  75247
> 
> (FirstName="Pam & Bobby" and LastName="Ewing") gets munged to
> 
>    Pam Ewing, Bobby
>    1 Southfork Ranch Drive
>    Braddock, TX  75247
> 
> (FirstName="Bobby" and LastName="Pam Ewing").
> 
> Or even worse, a name like
> 
>    Ewing, John Ross & Sue Ellen
> 
> (FirstName="John Ross & Sue Ellen" and LastName="Ewing") gets munged to
> 
>    & Sue Ellen Ewing, John
> 
> (FirstName="John" and LastName="& Sue Ellen Ewing").
> 
> Part of the problem is that one of the names is getting sucked up into 
> Evo's "Middle Name" field, and the sync'ing seems to be happening on 
> Evo's "File As" name (which defaults to "First Last" instead of "First 
> Middle Last"); but more subtle part of the problem is the parsing 
> sequence that Evo is using:  "Name1 Name2 (...) NameLast" gets stuffed 
> into the Evo record as
> 
>    First Name: Name1
>    Middle Name: Name2
>    Last Name: (...) NameLast
> 
> instead of
> 
>    First Name: Name1
>    Middle Name: Name2 (...)
>    Last Name: NameLast
> 
> (which seems more intuitive ...).  Or maybe sync'ing should happen based on
> 
>    Palm side        Evo side
>    ---------        --------
>    First Name <=> First Name, Middle Name
>    Last Name <=> Last Name
> 
> Comments, anyone?
> 
> -Phil
> 
> 
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