15 ms·

> IATA code (3 characters) What do you do if there's no airport?

by tambre 3y ago

jmbwell 3y ago
Or several?
jmillikin 3y ago
Pick the nearest airport? Or a nearby airport? Airport in the location's capital city? There's always an airport[0]. The purpose is to have a Schelling point that bypasses any tedious weeks-long arguments. Otherwise your Frankfurt datacenter gets named "ceurope" because the London datacenter got "europe" first, or you named the Ohio datacenter "east" and there's a fight about whether to call the new Virginia datacenter "easter". [0] If you're building a submerged datacenter in the middle of the Atlantic then ... well, do your best.
- jmbwell 3y ago
  Yeah see, it doesn’t necessarily solve any of these problems. If you have to do all this guesswork or refer to documentation anyway, maybe just use the human readable and immediately interpretable name of the town the DC is in. Increment a number for each new DC in the area. No cognitive hoops to jump through.
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    How many Springfields in the US? (65ish) How many San Joses in the world? (1700ish) Pennsylvania has two Baldwins, two Whitehalls and two Elizabeths.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  “I know we’re physically closer to BDL, but I think we’re culturally closer to JFK and, come on, you know the name is cooler,” says the guy determined to reintroduce bikesheding into the naming process.
  - derefr 3y ago
    There's only one good "closer to" for these purposes, and that's "by packet latency." The prefix is basically the location of the carrier hotel that serves your DC.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      This seems to just shift the problem to mapping an airport to the carrier hotel, though?
- TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
  Got it. No data centre in Andorra.
herio 3y ago
https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-and-territory https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-an... UN/LOCODE tends to have an abbreviation for most places.
- mhandley 3y ago
  I'm sure someone can find an objection. For example, Belfast (UK) is "GB BEL", but isn't actually in Great Britain (it is in "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland").
  - michaelhoffman 3y ago
    Here, "GB" stands for "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", not "Great Britain". > The codes are chosen, according to the ISO 3166/MA, "to reflect the significant, unique component of the country name in order to allow a visual association between country name and country code".[5] For this reason, common components of country names like "Republic", "Kingdom", "United", "Federal" or "Democratic" are normally not used for deriving the code elements. As a consequence, for example, the United Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 code GB rather than UK, based on its official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (although UK is reserved on the request of the United Kingdom). Some codes are chosen based on the native names of the countries. For example, Germany is assigned the alpha-2 code DE, based on its native name "Deutschland". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1
throw0101c 3y ago
> What do you do if there's no airport? UN/LOCODE may be more appropriate: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN/LOCODE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN/LOCODE * https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-and-territory https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-an... Has both country code and location with-in that.

> IATA code (3 characters) What do you do if there's no airport?

by tambre 3y ago

> IATA code (3 characters) What do you do if there's no airport?

jmbwell 3y ago

Or several?

jmillikin 3y ago

Pick the nearest airport? Or a nearby airport? Airport in the location's capital city? There's always an airport[0]. The purpose is to have a Schelling point that bypasses any tedious weeks-long arguments. Otherwise your Frankfurt datacenter gets named "ceurope" because the London datacenter got "europe" first, or you named the Ohio datacenter "east" and there's a fight about whether to call the new Virginia datacenter "easter". [0] If you're building a submerged datacenter in the middle of the Atlantic then ... well, do your best.

jmbwell 3y ago
Yeah see, it doesn’t necessarily solve any of these problems. If you have to do all this guesswork or refer to documentation anyway, maybe just use the human readable and immediately interpretable name of the town the DC is in. Increment a number for each new DC in the area. No cognitive hoops to jump through.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  How many Springfields in the US? (65ish) How many San Joses in the world? (1700ish) Pennsylvania has two Baldwins, two Whitehalls and two Elizabeths.
bee_rider 3y ago
“I know we’re physically closer to BDL, but I think we’re culturally closer to JFK and, come on, you know the name is cooler,” says the guy determined to reintroduce bikesheding into the naming process.
- derefr 3y ago
  There's only one good "closer to" for these purposes, and that's "by packet latency." The prefix is basically the location of the carrier hotel that serves your DC.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    This seems to just shift the problem to mapping an airport to the carrier hotel, though?
TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
Got it. No data centre in Andorra.

herio 3y ago

https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-and-territory https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-an... UN/LOCODE tends to have an abbreviation for most places.

mhandley 3y ago
I'm sure someone can find an objection. For example, Belfast (UK) is "GB BEL", but isn't actually in Great Britain (it is in "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland").
- michaelhoffman 3y ago
  Here, "GB" stands for "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", not "Great Britain". > The codes are chosen, according to the ISO 3166/MA, "to reflect the significant, unique component of the country name in order to allow a visual association between country name and country code".[5] For this reason, common components of country names like "Republic", "Kingdom", "United", "Federal" or "Democratic" are normally not used for deriving the code elements. As a consequence, for example, the United Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 code GB rather than UK, based on its official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (although UK is reserved on the request of the United Kingdom). Some codes are chosen based on the native names of the countries. For example, Germany is assigned the alpha-2 code DE, based on its native name "Deutschland". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1

throw0101c 3y ago

> What do you do if there's no airport? UN/LOCODE may be more appropriate: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN/LOCODE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN/LOCODE * https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-and-territory https://unece.org/trade/cefact/unlocode-code-list-country-an... Has both country code and location with-in that.