Programmers fallacies about postcodes:
- A postcode covers a small geographic area
- A postcode is good enough to locate an end user for generating location suggestions
- A postcode will be in a single timezone
- A postcode only has a single state
- A postcode has no exclaves/enclaves
I would like you to meet 0872. Australia's largest postcode (I think), covers 3 states, has two cut outs (Warbuton and Alice Springs), and even still some mail outside of this area is routed via 0872
Corrections / additional:
- @alexhelvetica pointed out that I missed the carve out for Alpurrurulam NT (4825)
- @simon_w raised another fallacy that you can't treat postcodes as numbers (0872 would become 872)
- @Dangerous_beans mentioned that postcodes can't be mapped to other geographic coding schemes like LGAs
- @ChlorideCull / @devopscats points out that postcodes can move / change
- @whyrl fallacy: A postcode can be mapped to a geographical location (see e.g. defence force personnel codes)
@xssfox @alexhelvetica @simon_w @Dangerous_beans @ChlorideCull @devopscats @whyrl in UK, postcodes contains letters, in France we have postcodes starting with 0 too. In France, companies can have personal postcode called CEDEX which is different from real postcode.
