3 ms·
You made me think of two similar (pet peeves) of mine: Address and US Dates In the latter, obviously Mar 15, 2013 is expressed as 3/15/2013. I prefer to encod
by jngreenlee 14y ago
You made me think of two similar (pet peeves) of mine:
Address and
US Dates
In the latter, obviously Mar 15, 2013 is expressed as 3/15/2013. I prefer to encode as 2013 03 15 (insert whatever syntax you like). There are enough techie people here I doubt I need to say much more on that.
But the former, addresses, really bother me. Why do we start with the smallest modifier first? It probably relates to the way postal routes were first created, maybe for ease of use for the delivery person, would would already be in a restricted area.
Seems that addresses should be ordered:
Country, City, ZIP/subregion, Street, Number, Person
- yew 14y agoIf you assume that most post travels between points that are close to one another, putting the most specific modifier first makes sense. Most of the time you only have to think about a small part of the address to route correctly. That breaks down if the assumption is incorrect, and also to some extent if you have many different places with the same name that all receive lots of mail from you. So you're essentially right: It's an artifact of how the postal system used to work. Though both assumptions still apply more often than you might think.
- scoot 14y agoGood point - likewise email addresses and domain names.
- jcampbell1 14y agoIn Chinese, everything is "big to small". It is very logical. dates are 2013-03-15, addresses are USA, New York, Manhattan, names are Last Name, First Name, etc.