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Comment by kaoD | Hacker News Reader

> Why do we use barcodes?

Barcode readers are cheaper.

Also, QR codes don’t work too well with damaged or faded paper. Think receipts. 1D barcodes work much better there as there’s redundancy in the second direction. Basically, QR codes do have the advantage in the density department, but are more complicated (relatively) to parse and more susceptible to damage. Tradeoffs that depend on your situation.

This just isn't true. QR codes have a high degree of redundancy built into them via error correcting codes. For example there is the famous case of a bitcoin private key being recovered from a small amount of a qr code and a blurry shot of the full one[0].

[0] https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/lets-enhance-how-we-found-...

I think the average QR code has what, 15-30% redundancy?

a 100 pixel high 1d barcode is 10,000% redundant in one axis :)

I found that if you damage one of the edges (with the positioning markers), most software will fail to read it.

My job involves scanning damaged codes of both types on a regular basis. QR codes are way more reliable than you'd expect, and will often scan even with partial codes, on damaged labels. Barcodes meanwhile always need a complete code to work.

Actually barcode readers are expensive. Barcode printers are cheap though.

[Edit] I misunderstood the context as being optical scan codes vs other technologies, not 2d vs 1d

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