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I don't think they share any information, or maintain address-databases. Usually there are official geodata (maps, postal codes) and customers normally don't re

I don't think they share any information, or maintain address-databases. Usually there are official geodata (maps, postal codes) and customers normally don't report back their own data to the government. Anyway, logistic of postal sercice is highly optimized and well defined, and changing anything is not as simple as hacking some script somewhere.

nybble41 8y ago
If they can't easily implement something as simple as a mapping from IDs to addresses, that seems less like "highly optimized and well defined" and more like "inflexible, cobbled-together mess". I don't doubt that what they're doing works well for the situations they've encountered in the past, but situations change and they need to be able to adapt. Anyway, a shortcut to implementing indirection for these less-organized postal services you're describing would be to look up the recipient's ID when the parcel first enters the system and affix a label with the full address. That way the sender doesn't need to know the address and everything else about the delivery can stay the same.
- slightwinder 8y ago
  Highly optimized and well defined solutions are by definition inflexible. Because they are the result of removing everthing which is not relevant for the task. If you are a company handling thousand of letters per minute, then you don't have any reason to be flexible, because the task does not change between the iterations. I mean we are talking here about industrial level of optimization, not some dude in his small office stamping his three letters a day. Companies on such level optimize everything from highest to lowest levels, because any optimization can make a difference of millions of whatever currency they use. In that scale, nothing is simple, because everything can become expensive on the high run.
  - nybble41 8y ago
    > Highly optimized and well defined solutions are by definition inflexible. Because they are the result of removing everthing which is not relevant for the task. Only if you don't consider flexibility part of the task, which is rather short-sighted in today's world. Maybe postal services could afford to be inflexible once, but those days are long past.

nybble41 8y ago

If they can't easily implement something as simple as a mapping from IDs to addresses, that seems less like "highly optimized and well defined" and more like "inflexible, cobbled-together mess". I don't doubt that what they're doing works well for the situations they've encountered in the past, but situations change and they need to be able to adapt. Anyway, a shortcut to implementing indirection for these less-organized postal services you're describing would be to look up the recipient's ID when the parcel first enters the system and affix a label with the full address. That way the sender doesn't need to know the address and everything else about the delivery can stay the same.

slightwinder 8y ago
Highly optimized and well defined solutions are by definition inflexible. Because they are the result of removing everthing which is not relevant for the task. If you are a company handling thousand of letters per minute, then you don't have any reason to be flexible, because the task does not change between the iterations. I mean we are talking here about industrial level of optimization, not some dude in his small office stamping his three letters a day. Companies on such level optimize everything from highest to lowest levels, because any optimization can make a difference of millions of whatever currency they use. In that scale, nothing is simple, because everything can become expensive on the high run.
- nybble41 8y ago
  > Highly optimized and well defined solutions are by definition inflexible. Because they are the result of removing everthing which is not relevant for the task. Only if you don't consider flexibility part of the task, which is rather short-sighted in today's world. Maybe postal services could afford to be inflexible once, but those days are long past.