I really enjoyed the writing style of the author. Great content.
Why don't we just use lat long coordinates or geohashes for addresses? The shit that delivery people have to put up with is truly ridiculous.
Why don't we just use lat long coordinates or geohashes for addresses? The shit that delivery people have to put up with is truly ridiculous.
Primarily because they're not very people-friendly.
- It's only recently that we have the means to look up alternate representations from coordinates (such as directions between two coordinate points).
- Street addresses partially encode path (as opposed to only point) information. If you know where a street is and how to get to it, it's more likely you can find the address you're looking for.
- It's easier for people to remember and relay. Similar to how people don't refer to each other by some unique numeric identifier, it's easier for people to remember and relay street addresses than numeric ids.
* I'm using street addresses as a proxy for "non-point address". Address encodings around the world are different.
Perhaps postal addressing will change now that we have easier lookup. I believe Fedex and UPS already encode different information in their printed address labels. I suspect something similar to street addresses will persist for quite a while given their human interface strengths.