(Meta) Should the PEPs page index by (not just the last name)

PEPs
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A short program counting the unique up-to-the-comma names at the end of PEP 0 – Index of Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs) | peps.python.org

$ cat names.txt | sort | uniq -c | grep -v 1
      2 Cannon
      2 Chung
      2 Meyer
      2 Moore
      5 Smith
      2 van Rossum
      2 Zhu

Maybe I’m lucky that someone might be clicking on my PEP (712) thinking it was another masterpiece by the great Brett Cannon, Python Core Developer.

But some part of me wishes that my “Cannon” in the list (1 of 60 total) was unambiguously mine. Perhaps I suffer because my counterpart is just too prolific (occupying 59 other entries!).

Maybe one of the 5 "Smith"s can share what they think? Or one of the other “twinsies”?

Just wanted to open the topic for discussion :smile:

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In some countries, it is common that people only have one name and no last name, (Indonesian names - Wikipedia) so I’d be supportive of listing people’s full name instead of the “Last, First” format.

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Good point. I tweaked the title.

And I’ll get ahead of a response I see, which is it can already be indexed by whatever a person chooses (for instance Guido Van Rossum’s identifier is “GvR”). Unless the majority is doing it, the people that self-select stick out like a sore-thumb :sweat:

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To implement this, we could add first_last (or full, etc.) to the Author namedtuple (really should have been a dataclass, IMO) in pep_sphinx_extensions/pep_zero_generator/author.py, and then change the code on this line in pep_sphinx_extensions/pep_zero_generator/parser.py to emit it instead of the current nickname (which defaults to the surname).

I was going to suggest you use the PEP “API” to grab the names programmatically and do what you’re looking for in a few lines of Python, but I actually realized that even in PEP.full_details only the last names are shown too, i.e.

import requests
import pandas as pd

PEP_API_URL = "https://peps.python.org/api/peps.json"
peps = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(requests.get(PEP_API_URL).json(), orient="index")
print(peps["authors"].value_counts())

prints:

Coghlan                               25
Warsaw                                21
Stinner                               18
GvR                                   15
von Löwis                             12
                                      ..
Simpson, Jewett, Turnbull, Stinner     1
Colomiets                              1
Coghlan, Urban                         1
Bryon                                  1
Durbin                                 1
Name: authors, Length: 330, dtype: int64

Therefore, this should be changed in full_details to use the full name as well.

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I clearly need more rejected PEPs to my name!

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Off topic, but the two Chungs are both me. I should submit a PR to fix the spelling.

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Hm, can I switch to a username/handle here? Using just my surname feels like putting on an ill-fitting suit and tie.

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Would you be unsatisfied with it listing your full name (as written in the PEP author field) instead, as I’m proposing—same as what you have your Discourse display name set to? That’s the simplest and most consistent solution (no more need for author overrides or special casing, just use whatever the author entered).

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That works too!
Preferably don’t call it first_last, or otherwise assume full names have some common parseable structure.

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Using the full name, as the author wrote it, would better accommodate different naming systems from around the world.

(See also Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names | Kalzumeus Software)

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So it’s been a while and no disagrees. What’s the next step? PR to the PEPs repo?

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Yes, would you like to put together a PR?

13

Yup! (Although it’ll be a bit :wink:)

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It should only require changing a few lines—adding a nametuple element full with the full literal name here, and then using that instead of surname here. See my comment above for full details.

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This has now been done, thanks to Joshua for the contribution!

A

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Admittedly, it feels good to see “Joshua Cannon” knowing I won’t get confused directly with Brett :slight_smile:

I hope others get a similar feeling from seeing their name.

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