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Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

mjt.me.uk

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Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#101

Post by hawkice »

cstigler wrote: post #69
userbinator wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even using GPS coordinates How can GPS coordinates be ambiguous? I can see different units of measure/notations being used, and the accuracy might be a problem for extremely close addresses, but wasn't it the point of GPS to provide an exact reference for any point on the planet?

GPS coordinates don't generally include altitude, correct? If he's in a six-floor apartment, how could GPS define which floor he's in?

Bingo. In my apartment building none of the units had numbers. I could point you to my unit, which was one of two doors on my floor, the other leading to a unit directly above me. So even GPS + Floor wouldn't quite me enough, although that's close enough that we could figure out who the package was for.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#102

Post by tombrossman »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
nvivo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I'm not saying single multiline textbox for every app out there. That would be crazy. :-) But I'm always surprised how many sites ask for information that will never be used for anything, and assume things like the lenght or characters valid in zip codes or phone numbers. I heard these days on "There is no such thing as a fish" podcast there is a country somewhere where the post office locates places by dir…

So, what's the proper way to deal with this then? Ask a series of questions and adapt the follow up to the questions depending on the answer given. Starting out with 'select your country' and then expand from there, the more you know the more you can narrow down the remainder of the input. That would be a nice little widget to be able to throw onto a form 'world accurate address input fields'. And for some localities…

Picking an arbitrary starting point like 'country' still has problems. I'm in Jersey Channel Islands, which isn't a country at all (much like Vatican City & other territories).

We are British but not part of the UK nor members of the EU. We're served by the British Royal Mail system and use UK-style postcodes, but sometimes when I input my address I must chose a country, so pick UK, which triggers UK VAT on my order. We're exempt from UK VAT so dealing with this is frustrating. Some retailers do waive it when I raise the point but I have to remember every time.

Total edge case I know, but I hope it demonstrates that even picking a really broad starting point like 'country' can still fail sometimes.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#104

Post by ghaff »

dfranke wrote: post #70
hawkice wrote: post #63

A falsehood only distantly alluded to: That people have addresses at all, or can describe their residence in an unambiguous or clear way (even using GPS coordinates). I used to live in a place I couldn't even remotely give directions to. It was deep within a neighborhood of a poorer country, none of the streets had names, none of the buildings are numbered. I lived in an building where none of the apartments had numb…

Furthermore, just because you don't have an address doesn't mean you can't receive mail! At least as recently as a few decades ago, there were rural communities in the US where nobody had a street address; the postal service knew where everybody lived and would deliver mail given just a name and town. I'm not sure whether this arrangement still exists in the US, but I'm pretty sure it still does in Ireland and probab…

When I was growing up in the 1960s, we just had a street name (which probably wasn't even required) and RFD #1 and the name of the adjacent town that handled rural delivery for the area. And this wasn't the back of beyond; it was just a couple miles outside one of the main Philadelphia suburban spokes. At some point they gave us a Box number to use although we didn't actually have a postal box and they continued to deliver in the usual manner at least until we moved around 1980.

In the US though, there was a real push to rationalize street addresses for emergency services in the late 90s or so. It may not be universal but I know of even summer camps at the end of dirt roads in Maine that have street addresses now.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#105

Post by montecarl »

Isn't it a false dichotomy that you can either have a complicated multipart form or a freeform text box for addresses? Why not by default show the multiform box that provides some nice (optional) validation to catch that vast majority of cases and also give the user an option to fill out a freeform text box if the former doesn't work for them?

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#106

Post by hayksaakian »

tombrossman wrote: post #102
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what's the proper way to deal with this then? Ask a series of questions and adapt the follow up to the questions depending on the answer given. Starting out with 'select your country' and then expand from there, the more you know the more you can narrow down the remainder of the input. That would be a nice little widget to be able to throw onto a form 'world accurate address input fields'. And for some localities…

Picking an arbitrary starting point like 'country' still has problems. I'm in Jersey Channel Islands, which isn't a country at all (much like Vatican City & other territories). We are British but not part of the UK nor members of the EU. We're served by the British Royal Mail system and use UK-style postcodes, but sometimes when I input my address I must chose a country, so pick UK, which triggers UK VAT on my order.…

Sorry I'd this comes off as tangential:

What kind of internet service do you have where you live (speed wise) ?

I've always considered island life, but poor internet service has put me off.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#107

Post by V-2 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #5

I read this article a long time ago and I took it seriously. So instead of asking for address, postal/zip code, city, state/province, I just put up a big text area labeled "Full address" so that people have complete freedom about what to fill in. 80% of the users ended up only filling in their street address, not their postal/zip code, city and state/province, even though they're from countries where (most?) addresse…

Right course, wrong reaction.

Knowing that addresses may not conform to any arbitrary rules should lead to disabling automatic validation (or downgrading it to nothing more but suggestions, "are you sure that's correct?" hints).

Not to stop offering users any guidance.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#108

Post by Retra »

mgkimsal wrote: post #52
UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #23

Is it common to believe that post codes don't start with zero? All of New England (ME, MA, NH, CT, RI, VT) have zero starting post codes. Plus apparently a part of New Jersey. Map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code Also, since it brought up naval vessels, here's the addresses of all US Navy ships: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/lists/ship-fpo.asp Anyways, the post office does a wonderful job delivering m…

I got in to an argument in school with my computer programming teacher. A BASIC course, we were having to design a system to accept an address, and I was treating my ZIP code as a string. IIRC, something like 50 INPUT "Your ZIP code?", ZIP$ Everything was reviewed via handwritten code and flowchart before we were allowed to type it in in the lab, and I was told "ZIP code is a number, but you're putting it in to a str…

People really need to learn the difference between ordinal, cardinal, and nominal numbers... And what 'semantics' are.

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#109

Post by junto »

IshKebab wrote: post #38
edmccard wrote: post #35

"An address will exist in the country's postal service's database" This is the one that I've run afoul of -- not because I live in a brand-new building, or a houseboat, or 30 miles from anywhere on an unnamed road; it's just that there is no door-to-door delivery for houses within a 2-block radius of the local post office, so we have a PO box. The trouble happens when a business that needs my street address uses the…

I have this problem too, but just because the UK postcode database that a lot of sites use is wrong. There's not even a way to report it. It means I can basically never pass a credit check at this address.

Your address should be included in the postcode database if you are registered to vote. Sometimes new addresses take a few months but they should get added eventually.

Go register to vote!

Re: Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses

#110

Post by MatthewWilkes »

One I always enjoyed that's not on the list (because it's UK specific, I guess) is:

Buildings don't have multiple postcodes in different outcodes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo... ).

Counter example:

* Merchant Venturers building, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UB

* Merchant Venturers building, Park Row, Bristol BS1 5UB

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