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Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

daspecster.github.com

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Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#71

Post by DannyBee »

daspecster wrote: post #4
asnyder wrote: post #2

Unfortunately in some cases a zipcode is in fact not enough, as it's possible for a zipcode to spread across multiple towns. However, if you have a full 9 digit zipcode then you can in fact always determine. However, even if you can't always determine this information exactly, a zipcode should be enough to pre-populate these fields for you most of the time, and in those rare cases which they don't a choice can be pre…

Thanks! I will be looking into this more. I'm aware of the 9digit zipcodes. I'll look into the USPS API. Also, I'll address the other comment below. That might answer some questions.

This is fairly useful if you are trying to get mailing addresses, though you have to be careful about rural route areas and other crap. There are also plenty areas where people are required to use mailing addresses that do not match what the zipcode says.

This is completely non-useful if you are trying to get residence addresses. Among other things: 1. There are plenty of places in the US where the zipcode serves an area many miles (IE 20+) away from the "city" associated with the zip code.

2. Postal boundaries do not match a lot of boundaries, and aren't updated as often. There are times when, for example, zip codes for towns in maryland were served from DC. So if you did reverse lookup on zip code, it would give you the wrong state and city.

This still happens near boundaries of states.

3. ZIP+4 does not solve these issues with enough accuracy (It's only about 95% accurate). ZIP+9 is still wrong about the city in plenty of cases.

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#72

Post by cygal »

rmc wrote: post #45

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be USA-only or not. It seems to ask for 'country', so I assume it's aimed at the whole world. And here's where reality disagrees with your simple organisation. * First "zip code" is mostly an American term, "post code" is used in other anglosphere countries. * Not all countries have "everyone is in a city" model, this seems to happen in the USA, where 'city' is often an administrat…

In France, Paris, Lyon and Marseille have multiple postal codes, and some postal codes are used for multiple cities (postal codes were attributed to delivery offices in 1972, and new offices now use the number of the nearest numbered office).

(And no, Ziptastic doesn't work for French postal codes.)

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#73

Post by mbell »

I use this database in my apps to solve exactly this problem (US only): http://federalgovernmentzipcodes.us/

No idea who runs it but its updated regularly and has never caused issue (so far). It includes both the USPS preferred city and all possible cities so you can either default to preferred or provide at least auto complete. Its also has all the military addresses and as well as lat/long, which is a bonus.

I can see the ziptastic concept being interesting if it was fully international but for just the US it takes about 15 minutes to download the linked csv, toss it in a DB table, and write the 3 queries you need. I don't understand the need for a service to handle such a simple task.

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#75

Post by stan_rogers »

mgkimsal wrote: post #61

I know it's been xerox-ed beyond original usage, but ZIP is an acronym - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code - "Zone Improvement Plan". Bugs the heck out of me that people don't treat it as an acronym. I have spoken. That is all.

If we're going to be unnecessarily pedantic, the canonical phrase is: "Ah has spoken!" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Abner )

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#76

Post by chimeracoder »

rmc wrote: post #45

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be USA-only or not. It seems to ask for 'country', so I assume it's aimed at the whole world. And here's where reality disagrees with your simple organisation. * First "zip code" is mostly an American term, "post code" is used in other anglosphere countries. * Not all countries have "everyone is in a city" model, this seems to happen in the USA, where 'city' is often an administrat…

It doesn't even work (perfectly) within the USA. Zip codes are so unreliable that they're not even used by other government agencies/projects - take a look at the Census, which uses ZCTAs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_Code_Tabulation_Area

The reason for this is that the USPS can change the zip codes without warning (and furthermore, leaves some areas undefined), whereas the Census needs reliable boundaries and fixed geographic areas.

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#78

Post by mikeash »

hax0r2112 wrote: post #59
uptown wrote: post #13

Their donate page isn't using SSL.

If you view-source, you will notice that they are using stripe.com. This is actually a clever trick in that the form is intercepted by javascript, securely transmitted to stripe for processing, then a token is returned to the calling web site with success codes, etc needed for future billing questions, refunds, etc. The issue is that we have (rightfully so) trained people to look for the lock icon, look for https, lo…

It's more secure than transmitting the data in the clear, but still not really secure. A MITM could trivially rewrite the form to steal your data when submitted, and the user wouldn't be able to tell unless they inspected the source.

Re: Ziptastic: Isn't a zipcode enough?

#79

Post by lunarscape »

rmc wrote: post #45

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be USA-only or not. It seems to ask for 'country', so I assume it's aimed at the whole world. And here's where reality disagrees with your simple organisation. * First "zip code" is mostly an American term, "post code" is used in other anglosphere countries. * Not all countries have "everyone is in a city" model, this seems to happen in the USA, where 'city' is often an administrat…

Getting things delivered to the Republic of Ireland is a major pain because of this. I've had deliveries delayed because the company in question doesn't believe my address is real or correct. It doesn't contain numbers, the word 'street' or a postcode. Some sites also flag your order if you put 0000 in as a postcode for example. Some enterprising guys have created an unofficial "Location Code"[1] for Ireland to help solve some of these problems but it all comes back to faulty assumptions.

[1] http://www.myloc8ion.com/

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