Ability to change the name of the player

[reedlabotz]

It would be nice to be able to change the name of the player.

[klnusbaum]

So the original API actually included a call to change the name of the player. I took it out and here's why. My plan is to later on allow people to view their "UDJ history". In other words, people will be able to do things like go back and see what songs they voted on in what players. Now if those player's names keep changing, I fear things will get confusing. "Dude, what song was that we were listening to at Dave's place? Let me look...oh what, I can't find Dave's player anywhere in my history" <---- What I'd like to avoid. Any thoughts on this? Does anyone have any ideas on how we might work around this issue? Is it even an issue?

[klnusbaum]

So @reedlabotz and I had a great chat in the #udj IRC channel. I think what we need to do is add back the concept of Events into the API. Player names still stay constant, but they can be in the state of "event". So for example we could say something like "Player X is currently being used at Event Y" or "Event Y is currently playing on Player X". We'll need to do some API additions, so I'll need some time to think about things. But I definitely think this could be an awesome middle ground. And then we tie in with things like Google Events and Facebook Events...mind blown.

[murph]

Why not just give all players a unique ID and use that for your history?

Then you can just look up the current name of an ID when displaying it. If you rename, the history goes with you.

[klnusbaum]

So players do each have a unique ID. And while yes, it is possible for us to track player history by player ID, what about users who want to track player history? I want (in the future) for users to be able to go back and see what they voted and where. If player names are changing willy nilly I fear they might be like "Player X? I've never participated with Player X. What the hell is this?"