Lat and long work quite well. If you have a smartphone with GPS it understands lat long. It may not understand 8 letter addresses. Some combination of letters may offend. How would you space them out?
Lat and long also have the advantage that addresses with a similar first part are grouped together. Defining an address is interesting. I worked on a government standards board for a while trying to come up with a standard address. There are a number of issues including how do you deal with "back stairs on left of". Postcodes for example are normally a physical location but some organisations have their own postcode and if the organisation moves it retains its postcode. I wish you luck in trying to define one. Software development does have some interesting social undercurrents. Many successful programmers are blunt and strangely enough this works well. The idea is communicated with little room for doubt. Sociology on the other hand is full of alternative points of view. Implementation is a different world and on reading the paper I hadn't realised it was hidden away in there. Cheerio John On 1 August 2018 at 03:37, oleksiy.muzal...@bluewin.ch < oleksiy.muzal...@bluewin.ch> wrote: > > Hi, > > I read the whole article. I agree with the author's main idea, - software > development and implementation has got the invisible social undercurrents, > which are as important as the technical issues. By the way, it is true for > any human endeavor . > > Speaking of database structure, - I am thinking about creating a notion of > an address. More than half of the planet population does not have addresses > because streets > do not have (and will never have) names, houses do not have numbers, etc. > Besides, in some areas addresses are unstable due to various socioeconomic > reasons. > > At the same time it is possible to create 208 billion of 8-letter unique > quasi-words with 26 letters of English alphabet (26 in the power of 8 = > 208827064576). Even more if numbers are included. It's enough for all > dwellings on Earth. It is easy to transmit a 8 letter word via telephone > with ICAO Phonetic Alphabet [1]. > > Then when we call in browser something like: osm.org/?address=hj3u878s or > type the unique quasi-word into a search of of the OSM map: the distinctive > geo-marker appears at the respective location with the additional > information, such as entrance door code, apartment level, etc. > > There are several commercial projects which attempt to do something > similar. And I realize that this approach may fail. However, the path to > success is paved with failures. > So at least it's worth giving it a try. > > However, most developers live in stable places where street names did not > change from the 19th century. They may not realize that lack of addresses > leads to situations > where people cannot call police, firefighters, ambulance, etc. In fact > they can call but cannot explain where they live. What consequently leads > to the social issues such as appearance of alternative criminal > "authorities", sub-quality healers, etc. > > [1] http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:nato-phonetic-alphabet > > Best regards, > Oleksiy > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > >
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