3 ms·

At least the Uk has the the defence that postcodes are 60 years old and that the legacy cruft that comes with that is part of life. Meanwhile Ireland introduce

At least the Uk has the the defence that postcodes are 60 years old and that the legacy cruft that comes with that is part of life. Meanwhile Ireland introduced Éircodes less than 10 years ago, chose an opaque format that uses a central database that you have to pay for access to for anything more than a handful of lookups, only covers homes (so you can’t give an eircode of a park, or a walk). It’s pretty much what you’d expect to be designed by a modern government.

chgs 2y ago
I’d expect a modern government to design something as clear and well regarded as the GDS stuff in the U.K. I’d expect a corporation like ibm etc to design the total mess we see with any large project
- jetbooster 2y ago
  Sadly I feel GDS is more of an outlier than the rule.
  - willyt 2y ago
    Transport for London is a pretty tightly run ship. Only capital city in the world that doesn't receive operating subsidy for its public transport. Not that that is a good thing necessarily as the tube is expensive to use relative to Paris or Berlin but a pretty impressive achievement considering the ancient complexity of the whole thing. Scotrail is run by the Scottish government and has been steadily electrifying the Scottish rail network and because of the slow and steady nature of the work, between them, Network rail and the OHLE contractors they have got the cost for this down to 5 times less per km than typical UK costs previously e.g. the great western main line. The moral of the story is get good people, give them stability and a clear goal and they will do great work. It doesn't really matter if they are working for the government or the private sector.
7952 2y ago
Postcode data is already freely available. You can even get coordinates of where the properties are. What is lacking is the actual addresses within a postcode.

chgs 2y ago

I’d expect a modern government to design something as clear and well regarded as the GDS stuff in the U.K. I’d expect a corporation like ibm etc to design the total mess we see with any large project

jetbooster 2y ago
Sadly I feel GDS is more of an outlier than the rule.
- willyt 2y ago
  Transport for London is a pretty tightly run ship. Only capital city in the world that doesn't receive operating subsidy for its public transport. Not that that is a good thing necessarily as the tube is expensive to use relative to Paris or Berlin but a pretty impressive achievement considering the ancient complexity of the whole thing. Scotrail is run by the Scottish government and has been steadily electrifying the Scottish rail network and because of the slow and steady nature of the work, between them, Network rail and the OHLE contractors they have got the cost for this down to 5 times less per km than typical UK costs previously e.g. the great western main line. The moral of the story is get good people, give them stability and a clear goal and they will do great work. It doesn't really matter if they are working for the government or the private sector.

7952 2y ago

Postcode data is already freely available. You can even get coordinates of where the properties are. What is lacking is the actual addresses within a postcode.