this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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Lobste.rs
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I kind of agree, but Country, really? They know most services can be used outside the US? A great way would be to choose a country (okay, if the majority of users are from the US it can be preselected), then that country's postal code list is used to fill in the rest of the fields (and as a fallback, you can enter unlosted code and address).
I still remember some asshole American services telling me that "a postal code consists of 5 numbers" (I'm from Europe, and it's 6 everywhere) - this is the result of going crazy on assumptions. Nice and convenient standardized systems can be built, but if you make one for an address on the planet, then start from Country and down, not from "I watched Beverly Hills 90210, this seems to work for me"
Canada is 3 letters and 3 numbers, alternated. For example, Santa's postal code is H0H 0H0 (this is real btw, he will answer in any language and the postage is free)
it's not 6 everywhere in Europe
Yeah, which is also the explanation why this isn't implementented nearly as often as the author would like.
The folks implementing these address input components probably puke already from just needing different sets of input fields and formats for different countries. If they have to call different APIs with different input and output formats for every country, that increases complexity quite a bit.
They talk about that in the blog
This blog assumes a lot. It's very US centric.