# US/UK web and database developers: not everyone has a zip/post code! (Warning: lame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 30, 2003, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872 "2003-07-30T09:45:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/21 "2003-07-30T13:49:06Z")
I used to work in property law here in Ireland and some of the addresses were absolute _nightmares_ - particularly when you included the full description as given on all the deeds going back a couple hundred years. “A formerly known as B situate in the Townland of C, Barony of D and County E now known as 10 F Street, G.” And usually E (and possibly G) are the only ones you can spell without assistance. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/22 "2003-07-30T14:46:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TheLoadedDog \* > \*\* > New Zealand has a weird postcode system though. Seems everywhere has a code, but they are rarely used. Just Kiwis being cool again… > \*\* Actually, **TLD** , NZ Post states in most of their literature that the postcodes are only necessary in NZ for bulk mailout purposes, not really for standard mail. I use mine anyway, because I grew up in an era where every letter in Auckland had a code, just a single or two digit number. Now it’s 4. Progress, eh? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/23 "2003-07-30T14:49:14Z")
Geez Wolfie, can’t a bloke flirt mildly with **Calm Kiwi** in peace? —or in other words— I didn’t **REALLY** think Kiwis were cool… 😃 Well, maybe… ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/24 "2003-07-30T14:51:43Z")
Jus’ gettin’ the facts straight, mate. That’s what we’re here for. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/25 "2003-07-30T14:53:11Z")
Got Kiwi women winkin’ at me? Check. WOAH. That’s the stuff… 🙂 My work here is done… ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/26 "2003-07-30T15:47:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*I used to work in property law here in Ireland and some of the addresses were absolute _nightmares_ - particularly when you included the full description as given on all the deeds going back a couple hundred years. “A formerly known as B situate in the Townland of C, Barony of D and County E now known as 10 F Street, G.” > > And usually E (and possibly G) are the only ones you can spell without assistance. \*\* Oh, that’s nothing. You should see the property law in New Mexico. And here’s why: In the 16th and 17th century, mostly, the Spanish government issued royal land grants. Eventually, when Mexico got independence, that government promised to uphold the original land grants. When the US got the area including New Mexico after the Mexican War, the US government promised to uphold the original land grants. So, if you really need to track the ownership of a property, sometimes you have to go all the way back several centuries into another language. I’m sure this is probably true in at least California, Arizona, and Texas, as well. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/27 "2003-07-30T15:49:38Z")
Um, some of the documents here are in another language too (Irish). ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/28 "2003-07-30T15:49:55Z")
This rant comes at a good time. I was just now trying to fill out a form at Priceline and I get [this](http://www.priceline.com/Invalid_Data.html). I have reviewed everything several times but I keep getting the same thing. The least they could do is tell you _what_ field does not parse. Screw them. I’m going somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/29 "2003-07-30T16:05:31Z")
I’m not going to mention the website, but it really should have known better. It had 35 available counties to pick from in Ireland (we’d be happy with 32, but thats another issue :)) including “Shannon”. It now still insists on entering a zip code. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/30 "2003-07-30T16:15:57Z")
Oh, and if you want to look at a map of Dublin on the Yahoo! map site, you have to choose “UK”. Furthermore, Yahoo! issues Irish people with @yahoo.co.uk addresses instead of @yahoo.ie ones. Not strictly relevant, but still… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/31 "2003-07-30T17:08:49Z")
> [@](#): > > It really is arrogant of these designers not to take the rest of the world into account. You misspelled ignorant. There is, of course, the insular nature of American business that tends to interfere with knowledge of the rest of the world, but most of it is simply the decision by corporations to jump into new software with both feet, then run out and hire lots of young, cheap labor to maintain it. These kids can all do wonderful things normalizing data and sending streams around the world, but most of them do not know how to find their own home town on a map of the U.S. In a little bit of their defense, I will point out that I was trying to help a couple of them set up a customer DB for a company with a lot of foreign sales and it was a nightmare. We initially tried to actually map the database to the data so that future generations would have reliable information when they went gathering statistics. We wound up with a U.S. model, a Commonwealth model, and a generic model (where every field other than the name and the country were free-form text). The professional mailing companies had 35 separate models, and we knew from experience with actual customers in several of the countries that the professional models were wrong (or, at least, that those countries had multiple acceptable forms and our customers preferred models that differed from the models offered). The other issue is that many companies are just entering the international market and they have no experience in-house to handle the new stuff. I once had to go through a database changing all the German and Austrian addresses from Strabe to Strasse. The clerk taking the hand-written addresses sent her was simply unaware of what she was reading. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/32 "2003-07-30T17:42:02Z")
I feel your pain. Immigration forms are even more fun, not to mention the various government and private databases that track the bureaucratic progress of those forms. When you figure out the postal code thing, wanna come over here and design a U.S. immigration forms package, with Lotus Notes interface, that can deal with all the wacky international address and personal name formats and isn’t also a pile of crap? My firm would be eternally grateful. Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal, stuck here trying to fit what seems to be a 20-part Brazilian family name into an 10-character box obviously designed by Anglo-Saxons who have never left the Midwest (and you’d think that Fedex, at least, would be used to dealing with this sort of thing!) ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/33 "2003-07-30T17:44:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > **Furthermore, Yahoo! issues Irish people with @yahoo.co.uk addresses instead of @yahoo.ie ones.** I have a yahoo.ie address. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/34 "2003-07-30T19:23:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*I have a yahoo.ie address. \*\* Maybe Yahoo issues users in Northern Ireland with .uk addresses, and those in the Irish Republic with .ie addresses? The U.S. handles things similarly from a diplomatic standpoint; I once tried to schedule a final green card appointment in London for a guy from Belfast, but who had an Irish rather than a U.K. passport. London wouldn’t take jurisdiction on the reasoning that he didn’t consider himself a U.K. citizen, by virtue of the fact that he bore an Irish passport, and the U.S. Embassy in Dublin wouldn’t take him, because in the U.S. government view he’d been born in the U.K. We finally gave up on sorting out matters of international diplomacy by sending him to Sydney; as his last foreign residence had been in Australia, that was the only post that had to accept him, exercise of discretion or no. (Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?) ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/35 "2003-07-31T03:11:25Z")
Feh. Try having a last name with a hyphen. Can’t count the number of freakin’ times I’ve gotten an error: “The name field may only contain letters of the English language” or something like that. Led to a freakin’ 2-hour phone call trying to get the nice folks at the ETS to correct my SAT registration. Same thing happened with the ACT. Grrrrr. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/36 "2003-07-31T09:49:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eva Luna \* > **Maybe Yahoo issues users in Northern Ireland with .uk addresses, and those in the Irish Republic with .ie addresses?** It probably does, although as jjimm and I live in the same neighbourhood (which neither crosses nor indeed sits anywhere near the border 😉 ), it wouldn’t explain why I could get a .ie address and he couldn’t. > [@](#): > > The U.S. handles things similarly from a diplomatic standpoint; I once tried to schedule a final green card appointment in London for a guy from Belfast, but who had an Irish rather than a U.K. passport. London wouldn’t take jurisdiction on the reasoning that he didn’t consider himself a U.K. citizen, by virtue of the fact that he bore an Irish passport, and the U.S. Embassy in Dublin wouldn’t take him, because in the U.S. government view he’d been born in the U.K. We finally gave up on sorting out matters of international diplomacy by sending him to Sydney; as his last foreign residence had been in Australia, that was the only post that had to accept him, exercise of discretion or no. > > (Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?) Having once _done_ your job, I empathise completely. Of course, all the above is also complicated by the fact that the U.S. views the Six Counties as part of Ireland rather than part of the U.K. for the purposes of the Diversity Visa. I’m sure the nordies have Bruce Morrison to thank for that. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/37 "2003-07-31T09:49:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ice Wolf \* > \*\*Actually, **TLD** , NZ Post states in most of their literature that the postcodes are only necessary in NZ for bulk mailout purposes, not really for standard mail. I use mine anyway, because I grew up in an era where every letter in Auckland had a code, just a single or two digit number. Now it’s 4. Progress, eh? 😉 \*\* We have 4 didgits now? Who knew! I’m still using the single 9 if I use anything at all. Oh and a wink for **TheLoadedDog** 😉 ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/38 "2003-07-31T09:51:01Z")
Well that certainly was a novel way to spell digit…oops ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/39 "2003-07-31T09:58:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > **You misspelled ignorant.** You misspelled “so breathtakingly ignorant that they need a slap round the fucking head with an atlas”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872/40 "2003-07-31T10:00:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by calm kiwi \* > \*\*We have 4 didgits now? Who knew! I’m still using the single 9 if I use anything at all. > \*\* Yeah. Take mine for example. Where I live, it was Auckland 7, and now it’s Auckland 1007. Yours would be similar, **calm kiwi**. Heh. So Aussies get all excited over winking, huh? Heh, heh, heh. Oi, **TLD**? 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-uk-web-and-database-developers-not-everyone-has-a-zip-post-code-warning-lame/191872.md?page=3)