9 Jan
2021
9 Jan
'21
1:47 a.m.
On Friday 08 January 2021 16:38:44 deloptes wrote:
William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Sorry, but I unintentionally conflated US ZIP codes (e.g., 60007 -- for
somewhere in the Chicago area) with state codes (e.g., IL for Illinois). I
was trying to avoid using Americanisms and confusing international readers.
(Thanks to Gene for putting that thought in my head.)
The 5-digit numerical ZIP codes (or extended codes, which are nine digits) and
state codes such as IL both originate with our postal system, and have become
habit since about the 1980s or so. But in England regions are abbreviated as
Oxen., Hants., Bucks., etc., and postal codes (similar to US ZIP codes) are
entirely different. The same problem for everywhere else; they will have
different systems, and trying to accomodate these variations will be a
headache for developers.
Airport codes are more standardized, but not every place has an airport. If we
draw from Weather Underground or other online pages, then we are dependent on
intermediaries, and access to the data can be interrupted. So the question
is, how to draw from the original source(s) themselves, those that are used
by online weather pages?
Bill
I, too, was just skimming the last couple posts,
but I noticed that for
US entries, postal codes for states were listed by deloptes from his dat
source, but for Europe, etc., similar codes are given. What I remember of
UK postal codes (for instance) does not match this two-letter scheme.
Is there some database that can be used as a source, so that it is
consistent? It would be okay to use both airport codes and postal codes
(called ZIP codes in the US), as well as any other source, but it would
be nice if users had some inkling of the source; e.g., as Michael
suggested, we could use Weather Underground -- or maybe multiple sources?
The problem here is of course that the business of weather forecasts
varies from one place to another; there is no World Weather Federation.
There is issue #4
(https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tdetoys/issues/4)
but it goes out of the scope of fixing the issue #9