he can’t do that if the address says, “That one old guy who lives in the village over by the river”.
As a nitpick—yes, he can. In the third world it’s not uncommon to NOT have a working system of usual addresses and locations are typically specified as town—local landmark—directions from that local landmark.
Right, I was thinking in the context of our Western society. But in the third world, as you said, the opposite is true: an address like “123 Main St., Sometown Somecountry” simply does not work. So it is still not the case that you need to implement a fully general address database that covers all possible cases; you only need to cover the cases that you personally care about.
Of course, you’re much less likely to be shipping a package to those kinds of third world countries, and even if you did, you’d have trouble making sure it gets delivered to its destination for other reasons.
As a nitpick—yes, he can. In the third world it’s not uncommon to NOT have a working system of usual addresses and locations are typically specified as town—local landmark—directions from that local landmark.
Right, I was thinking in the context of our Western society. But in the third world, as you said, the opposite is true: an address like “123 Main St., Sometown Somecountry” simply does not work. So it is still not the case that you need to implement a fully general address database that covers all possible cases; you only need to cover the cases that you personally care about.
Of course, you’re much less likely to be shipping a package to those kinds of third world countries, and even if you did, you’d have trouble making sure it gets delivered to its destination for other reasons.