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Put the zip code first

zipcodefirst.com

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Re: Put the zip code first

#291

Post by mxdvl »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #260
collinmanderson wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree using the preferred city name works just fine for USPS, though maybe not for UPS/Fedex. What I want to know is: Why isn't this preferred city+state mapping dataset for zip codes publicly available from USPS? It would be like 40kb of data for the entire thing. Why is this not public domain from the US Government? Edit: or is this what I'm looking for (the "Physical City", "Physical State" columns? https://post…

That's not nearly as good as Canada's H0H 0H0.

Which thankfully Zippopotamus supports: https://api.zippopotam.us/CA/H0H

Re: Put the zip code first

#292

Post by _dain_ »

digitalPhonix wrote: post #276
sph wrote: post #115

Falsehoods US programmers believe about addresses: there are no other countries than the US of A, and if there are, they don’t really matter. This person bought a whole domain for something that doesn’t work for 90% of the world, claiming it does, never even testing their assumption. Great job!

> Fine, maybe country first. The purists in the comments are technically correct — postal codes aren't globally unique. You could do country first (pre-filled via IP), then postal code, then let the magic happen. The point was never "skip the country field." The point is: stop making me type things you already know. It’s addressed in the article (at the end, admittedly).

The existence of countries other than the US is not a "technicality".

But it doesn't matter because the whole article is AI generated.

Re: Put the zip code first

#293

Post by Twey »

bombcar wrote: post #152
Twey wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZIP+4? I think that's literally enough digits to give every house in the US (about 150,000,000 apparently) its own identifier.

Only if there's never more than 10,000 addresses in a single zip code, which means that if you enforce that, you can force a zip code to appear by building enough house

I think my point is that if you're going to make people learn a 9-digit identifier for their house you might as well make that identifier unique and then that's the only information they need to fill in. Having non-unique 9-digit identifiers feels wasteful.

Re: Put the zip code first

#294

Post by awesome_dude »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #274
awesome_dude wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, you should take a minute to look the answer up - ZIP Codes 10701, 10702 (post office), 10703–10705, 10707 (shared with Tuckahoe, NY), 10708 (shared with Bronxville, NY), 10710, 10583 (shared with Scarsdale, NY)

Is that information supposed to change my mind about something? If you put in any of those numbers it can prefill the city name, with enough accuracy that you don't need to change it. Did I imply anywhere that cities only have one zip code before you asked about Yonkers? I said if you can remember your city name you can remember your zip code. That doesn't imply you would use a list to get from one to the other.

It would have improved your response was all - nobody accused you of anything, but this response of yours... way off

Re: Put the zip code first

#295

Post by Ekaros »

Macha wrote: post #67
birdsongs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best times are when US ecommerce sites try to confidently lint foreign addresses, even when they allow shipping there. I've had them tell me I need 5 digits for my postal code in Norway, which uses 4 digits. I selected Norway in the shipping web form. Or when they tell me special characters aren't allowed, yet the "special characters" are just letters in the Norwegian alphabet. My address contains ø. These aren't…

I remember US based sites insisting I provide them a post code for like a decade before most of my country _had_ post codes.

Or some strange concept of state. Well there is some upper divisions, but postal service does absolutely nothing with them and they are never part of any address.

Re: Put the zip code first

#296

Post by rendx »

morganf wrote: post #85

Someone needs to write "Falsehoods programmers believe about zip codes" hahahaha ;) PD: if you don't get the reference, a classic: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

Here you go (2013): https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...

Also: the awesome-falsehood collection: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

Re: Put the zip code first

#297

Post by Dylan16807 »

awesome_dude wrote: post #294
Dylan16807 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that information supposed to change my mind about something? If you put in any of those numbers it can prefill the city name, with enough accuracy that you don't need to change it. Did I imply anywhere that cities only have one zip code before you asked about Yonkers? I said if you can remember your city name you can remember your zip code. That doesn't imply you would use a list to get from one to the other.

It would have improved your response was all - nobody accused you of anything, but this response of yours... way off

Improved how?

I picked up the implication that you thought my response could be improved, so I tried to guess what your criticism was and respond to that. If it feels "way off" because I framed it as disagreement, then I dunno, that feels like the right framing? Unless it's something else I did? I could have made it clearer I was guessing but that doesn't seem way off.

Re: Put the zip code first

#300

Post by dataflow »

jasomill wrote: post #198
dataflow wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically speaking ZIP codes are not "supposed" to span states but, in exceptional cases, some do. In this case USPS handles it the same way: the state of the preferred city is the preferred state for the ZIP code. I've heard this before but it raises a million questions for me and I don't understand how this doesn't cause massive systematic problems and headaches in practice. Are residents even usually well-awar…

My dad had an address in Morgantown, Indiana, and the fact that he lived several miles south, over the county line and past antother small town, always made it pretty clear to me that he didn't live in Morgantown. Likewise, if you live in another state, there's little confusion because state lines appear on maps and are well marked on all major roads. Businesses and individuals are responsible for knowing which state…

Thanks for explaining! That's a great perspective/experience that helps me understand it better.

Re: legal documents: there are less severe cases than warrants that I would expect to trip a lot of people up, which is what I'm wondering more about. Example:

ZIP code 97635 is apparently in both Oregon and California. The post office for both sides of the border appears to be in New Pine Creek, OR 97635. So if someone provides you with that address, you would quite naturally assume they're in Oregon. And you might collect taxes, record calls, or sell their personal data based on that. But whoops! Turns out they're actually in California, so you just broke a bunch of privacy laws on top of missing tax payments to California, in some cases potentially risking criminal penalties.

Wouldn't this trip a lot of people up, especially for smaller entities? I can understand multi-billion-dollar businesses having this all handled correctly, but for individuals or smaller businesses, wouldn't it completely throw them off and potentially subject them to criminal penalties? (How) would people deal with this?

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