On Friday 08 January 2021 16:38:44 deloptes wrote:
William Morder via tde-users wrote:
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
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