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The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

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Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#121

Post by andrepd »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #92
SilverBirch wrote: post #88

This type of thing clearly just doesn't tweak me the way that it tweaks some people. I'm not convinced you could end up with a great way of assigning airport codes today, even if we completely started fresh and we assumed no new airports are ever created. In fact, in a lot of cases the weird corner cases are often situations where you can ask "Would it have been better to stringently apply the rule, or to bend the ru…

This is true for any area that constantly has to come up with new names for things. In physics for example, terms like "recombination," "technicolor" or just "virtual particle" have become profoundly confusing to new students, but naming everything after people or completely new invented words free of misleading context would probably be even worse. Even the term "black hole" was probably not the smartest choice in h…

I had to think for a solid 30s before I realised what you were implying with the term "black hole". Honestly I think the problem might be in your mind, not the words x)

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#123

Post by ratg13 »

europeanguy wrote: post #108
rippercushions wrote: post #3

You think airport codes are bad, try airline codes. The IATA standard is still only two (2) letters, leading to insanity like recycling codes after one airline dies, meaning the meaning of the code is time-dependent, and, even worse, "controlled duplicates" where two airlines are intentionally assigned the same code at the same time , since they fly in different parts of the world and pinky-promise to never overlap.…

> leading to insanity like recycling codes after one airline dies, meaning the meaning of the code is time-dependent Why is this insanity? Almost everything in real life is time dependent. I think this is just insanity to devs who want to fit the world to their data model rather than the other way around which is how it should be.

Reusing the same unique identifier another user or business had almost always causes problems.

If special access was given to one entity, often that special access remains after the new entity takes over.

Often times the new entity gets access to private data of the old entity.

It makes record keeping difficult to know who was what entity at any given time.

If you haven’t seen the problems caused by doing this, consider yourself lucky for working for institutions that aren’t so careless.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#125

Post by analog31 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #92
SilverBirch wrote: post #88

This type of thing clearly just doesn't tweak me the way that it tweaks some people. I'm not convinced you could end up with a great way of assigning airport codes today, even if we completely started fresh and we assumed no new airports are ever created. In fact, in a lot of cases the weird corner cases are often situations where you can ask "Would it have been better to stringently apply the rule, or to bend the ru…

This is true for any area that constantly has to come up with new names for things. In physics for example, terms like "recombination," "technicolor" or just "virtual particle" have become profoundly confusing to new students, but naming everything after people or completely new invented words free of misleading context would probably be even worse. Even the term "black hole" was probably not the smartest choice in h…

On the other hand, the behavioral sciences are burdened with the adoption of terminology that carries strong connotations for laypeople, such as "personality" and "subconscious," some of which have taken on a life of their own. And this choice of naming started well before those fields even began to embrace scientific methodology.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#126

Post by gkedzierski »

makeitdouble wrote: post #111
SilverBirch wrote: post #88

This type of thing clearly just doesn't tweak me the way that it tweaks some people. I'm not convinced you could end up with a great way of assigning airport codes today, even if we completely started fresh and we assumed no new airports are ever created. In fact, in a lot of cases the weird corner cases are often situations where you can ask "Would it have been better to stringently apply the rule, or to bend the ru…

I’d argue if it was to be redone from scratch, we’d settle for hierarchical codes with country namespaces. Probably something like us.lax, fr.cdg, ko.inc, or a combination of country + number HK02, GB231 etc. Simple system get approved when there’s low friction in the ruling comitee, as it was the case when few countries were involved in the first place. Once more that 50 members need to agree on something restrictin…

Sounds good until you get to the edge cases. For instance, GVA is in two countries at the same time.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#127

Post by sigmoid10 »

andrepd wrote: post #121
sigmoid10 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for any area that constantly has to come up with new names for things. In physics for example, terms like "recombination," "technicolor" or just "virtual particle" have become profoundly confusing to new students, but naming everything after people or completely new invented words free of misleading context would probably be even worse. Even the term "black hole" was probably not the smartest choice in h…

I had to think for a solid 30s before I realised what you were implying with the term "black hole". Honestly I think the problem might be in your mind, not the words x)

Well, at least not if you're a child or were raised in a prudish environment. But as the other commenter pointed out, this was the era of physics during woodstock.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#128

Post by selectodude »

makeitdouble wrote: post #111
SilverBirch wrote: post #88

This type of thing clearly just doesn't tweak me the way that it tweaks some people. I'm not convinced you could end up with a great way of assigning airport codes today, even if we completely started fresh and we assumed no new airports are ever created. In fact, in a lot of cases the weird corner cases are often situations where you can ask "Would it have been better to stringently apply the rule, or to bend the ru…

I’d argue if it was to be redone from scratch, we’d settle for hierarchical codes with country namespaces. Probably something like us.lax, fr.cdg, ko.inc, or a combination of country + number HK02, GB231 etc. Simple system get approved when there’s low friction in the ruling comitee, as it was the case when few countries were involved in the first place. Once more that 50 members need to agree on something restrictin…

ICAO code for Amsterdam Schipol is EHAM

E - Europe H - Holland AM - AMsterdam

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#129

Post by kijeda »

makeitdouble wrote: post #111
SilverBirch wrote: post #88

This type of thing clearly just doesn't tweak me the way that it tweaks some people. I'm not convinced you could end up with a great way of assigning airport codes today, even if we completely started fresh and we assumed no new airports are ever created. In fact, in a lot of cases the weird corner cases are often situations where you can ask "Would it have been better to stringently apply the rule, or to bend the ru…

I’d argue if it was to be redone from scratch, we’d settle for hierarchical codes with country namespaces. Probably something like us.lax, fr.cdg, ko.inc, or a combination of country + number HK02, GB231 etc. Simple system get approved when there’s low friction in the ruling comitee, as it was the case when few countries were involved in the first place. Once more that 50 members need to agree on something restrictin…

Your first suggestion almost perfectly articulated UNLOCODEs, e.g. "US LAX" https://service.unece.org/trade/locode/usk.htm

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#130

Post by mschuster91 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #23
woodruffw wrote: post #2

The entire world of airline coding (as in "encoding") is fascinating to me: there are all kinds of ancient semi-human-readable formats like ACARS[1] and IATA Teletype[2] that are still pushing data around. Not the mention standard meal codes[3], like BLML for "bland meal" and CLML for "celebration cake meal." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_teletype_system [3]: http…

I've also wondered why cryptically abbrevated things like NOTAMS are still the way they are. It made sense in a teletype/telegraph world where brevity was worth time and money. From wikipedia, this is a typical NOTAM: A1234/06 NOTAMR A1212/06 Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 A)EGLL B)0609050500 C)0704300500 E)DUE WIP TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'. TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B' AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN…

> Pilots have to know how to read and understand this stuff.

Not just regular pilots, but also (here in the EU) operators of drones under A2 classification.

And let me tell you, it sucks, particularly if you're from anywhere else but the US and never heard of units like feet, miles and inches and what they mean outside of "this exists, is only used in the US and that's it" once in school. The only thing in a standard unit there is the temperature, and that I guess is only the case because "0C" is way more obvious as the freezing point of water.

I get it, this dates back to hundreds of years of nautical practice, but everybody else has long since shifted to metric...

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