From: anton@analsyn.gts.org (Anton J Aylward)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations (was Re: What is this group for?)
Reply-To: anton@lethe.gts.org
Organization: ASCI: UNIX Database and Communications
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Distribution: can
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 13:59:26 GMT

In the article (<C0BGIv.A6L@wimsey.bc.ca>) Stuart Lynne (sl@wimsey.bc.ca) posted to can.domain in reply ro Ed Hew:

: I was suggesting that the postal codes (first three digits) would be
: quite a reasonable code from an official government source. I.e. it's
: short and everyone has one (and hopefully with only a few exceptions)
: and only one.

This is indeed not the case.
I work with this database and have the current (December) copy which
CPC ships on mag tape.  Postal codes are not as 'unique' as Staurt
believes.  Please, Stuart, discontinue this line.  Using postalcodes
- and especially using them exclusively - is NOT worth while.
The 'database' may have been designed well from CPC's point of view, in
therms of the posties walks etc.  But from a database orgaization point
of view its a mess.  

The argument that PCs are not mnemonic is the strongest one.  They
don't have any kind of checksum.  If you post to fred@foo.m2j.on.ca
and the 'm2j' is in error what can you do?  If you post to
fred@foo.torotno.on.ca at least the postmaster can see the typo.

	The first letter of a postalcode determines the province.
	Given we are using ".<prov>.ca" we dont need that first letter,
	so you can type "fred@foo.2j.on.ca"......

	Or conversely we can suppress the province information.

I don't think either of these are 'good things', but they are the
logical conclusion if you are trying to reduce the amount of typing.
I don't think this is a good idea either.  Ergonomics have repeatedly
shown that minimizing keystrokes at the cost of intelligibility leads to
increased error rates.  "tor.on.ca" is more meaningful - to most of us
in Ontario - than "m2j.ca".   I would gather because no-one has yet
raised the issue of the first letter of the PC that most were unaware of
it.  (I said most - no flames please.)

The way that CPC have defined the postalcodes means that your idea
has some gaping holes.  For residential areas in the urban zones it
would work.  For business, commercial or industrial it fails because of
the way that CPC does 'aliasing' (I don't know what else it call it).
CPC allows large orgainatiations to have more than one postalcode for a
specific address.  Yes, it makes runing the database a real bummer!
One of my clients has four sets of postalcode for mail which is
ultimately delivered to the same building.

Now in case you retort that this is a simple form of aliasing, no, its
not.  The 'simple' part is a special arrangement.  Its not like
site.city.prov.ca being an alias for site.uucp.  

Yes, we could come up with enough tables to manage all this, but I don't
think its worth the effort.

Final point.  Postalcodes are not static.
They may be for residential areas, but once again, large organizations
in office building have their own PC.  In some cases each floor of some
buildings have their own PC.  So you move location (expand taking over
another floor), your PC changes.  I don't know about you, but I would
like an E_Mail address which is independent of the location I work at
or where I choose to live.  Changing E-Mail address every time I move
house would prove inconvenient.

Please Stuart, don't turn this issue into a crusade.  There are better
things to have religious wars over.
-----
Anton J Aylward						
	"The body politic is swerving from left to right and right to
	 left looking for quick fixes for systemic problems."
	   - Paul Palango, Journalist, ex The Globe and Mail
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