Re: Phone numbers and form fields

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From: Philip Newton
Subject: Re: Phone numbers and form fields
Date: 05:39 on 04 Mar 2005
On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:56:53 +0200, Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@xxx.xx> wrote:
> forms that require entering a US state.

There seem to be two variants of those - the "better" ones (and I do
use that word loosely) merely make a it a required field, possibly two
characters long. The more hateful ones give you a drop-down list to
choose from; if they're especially "enlightened" they may also include
Canadian provinces, and/or APO codes.

Well, it so happens that Germany has two-digit ISO abbreviations for
its states... but they're never used when sending paper mail. Nor
should the postal code (which, luckily perhaps, is five digits since
the reunification) come after the town: 21077 Hamburg, not "Hamburg,
HH 21077". Idiots.

Why not provide a free-form text field that lets people enter as many
rows as they need[*], in whatever form the loval post office expects?
Probably because users are idiots, too.

[*] English addresses are especially infamous for occasionally
requiring six or more rows of address.

Cheers,
-- 
Philip Newton <philip.newton@xxxxx.xxx>
There's stuff above here

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