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Writing a geocoder is hard because they combine natural language processing (i.e. address parsing, an exceptionally hard problem) with the need to search throug

Writing a geocoder is hard because they combine natural language processing (i.e. address parsing, an exceptionally hard problem) with the need to search through a very large dataset, typically 300-500GB but sometimes more. Doing that for each query generally requires using ElasticSearch, which doesn't respond well to being run on a VPS with 512MB of RAM. If you're not interested in this subject, there are lots of other posts on this site you can go read about. Edit: In addition to the RAM requirements, you need a persistent volume containing the entire index attached to each serving instance, which is a real bummer when you want to scale horizontally. > When you write like this it sounds very unprofessional. Also you are basically saying "this is really expensive, unless it isn't". Likewise actually, it's kind of unprofessional to respond in this way to somebody's personal writing style for a writeup on her personal blog about a personal project. Go read some other Show HN thread, there's lots of genuinely cool stuff here, no need to pick on someone for writing in a way you disapprove of.

ranger_danger 3y ago
> If you're not interested in this subject, there are lots of other posts on this site you can go read about This is just as unprofessional and condescending.
- ellenhp 3y ago
  I was annoyed, and that was intended to be a little condescending yeah. I'm not going to let someone who goes by the name "CyberDildonics" tell me to be more professional online without being a little bit snarky in response. I hope that isn't against the rules. edit: Looks like it is in fact against the rules, but I think I'm tentatively going to leave the comment up because I did provide a valuable answer to the parent commenter's question. Mods can do what they will of course. :)
  - bhaney 3y ago
    I'm mostly just sad you stopped the chain of people calling their parent post "unprofessional". We could have gotten it 4 replies deep!
  - Rodeoclash 3y ago
    Ignore the haters here. What you've built is cool and you're rightly proud of it.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - ellenhp 3y ago
      > Isn't this an ad for something you're selling? No. This is a demo of an open-source project that I've released for free. > To me it seems like something that has been around for a very long time and is now being resold under a new label of "geocoding" That's just what this class of software is called. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/overview https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/o... https://docs.mapbox.com/api/search/geocoding/ https://docs.mapbox.com/api/search/geocoding/ https://geocode.earth/ https://geocode.earth/ https://github.com/komoot/photon https://github.com/komoot/photon https://nominatim.org/ https://nominatim.org/ https://pelias.io/ https://pelias.io/ https://www.here.com/platform/geocoding https://www.here.com/platform/geocoding https://developer.tomtom.com/geocoding-api/documentation/geocode https://developer.tomtom.com/geocoding-api/documentation/geo... https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/ https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/ https://github.com/Qwant/mimirsbrunn https://github.com/Qwant/mimirsbrunn All of these call themselves geocoders. > 25 years ago tiny contained $100 GPS units had the entire US on a 2 GB flash card. Yeah! Super cool feat of engineering accomplished mostly by requiring you to do structured search, if I remember correctly. I never drove with one as they were a bit before my time. I remember them being very fiddly, but that was an observation I made from the back seat of a car as a child so, grain of salt. And yes to google maps offering this for free as a part of their maps client. Not free if you're a 3rd party software developer though, as you'll see if you click through the first link I posted above.
  - patcon 3y ago
    I like you. Your style seems great to me. The nit-picker talking about your "lack of professionalism" is not my preferred sort of human to encounter, and I would frankly prefer to hear from their sort much less often. I'd take 10 more ppl like you on this site any day

ranger_danger 3y ago

> If you're not interested in this subject, there are lots of other posts on this site you can go read about This is just as unprofessional and condescending.

ellenhp 3y ago
I was annoyed, and that was intended to be a little condescending yeah. I'm not going to let someone who goes by the name "CyberDildonics" tell me to be more professional online without being a little bit snarky in response. I hope that isn't against the rules. edit: Looks like it is in fact against the rules, but I think I'm tentatively going to leave the comment up because I did provide a valuable answer to the parent commenter's question. Mods can do what they will of course. :)
- bhaney 3y ago
  I'm mostly just sad you stopped the chain of people calling their parent post "unprofessional". We could have gotten it 4 replies deep!
- Rodeoclash 3y ago
  Ignore the haters here. What you've built is cool and you're rightly proud of it.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ellenhp 3y ago
    > Isn't this an ad for something you're selling? No. This is a demo of an open-source project that I've released for free. > To me it seems like something that has been around for a very long time and is now being resold under a new label of "geocoding" That's just what this class of software is called. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/overview https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/o... https://docs.mapbox.com/api/search/geocoding/ https://docs.mapbox.com/api/search/geocoding/ https://geocode.earth/ https://geocode.earth/ https://github.com/komoot/photon https://github.com/komoot/photon https://nominatim.org/ https://nominatim.org/ https://pelias.io/ https://pelias.io/ https://www.here.com/platform/geocoding https://www.here.com/platform/geocoding https://developer.tomtom.com/geocoding-api/documentation/geocode https://developer.tomtom.com/geocoding-api/documentation/geo... https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/ https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/ https://github.com/Qwant/mimirsbrunn https://github.com/Qwant/mimirsbrunn All of these call themselves geocoders. > 25 years ago tiny contained $100 GPS units had the entire US on a 2 GB flash card. Yeah! Super cool feat of engineering accomplished mostly by requiring you to do structured search, if I remember correctly. I never drove with one as they were a bit before my time. I remember them being very fiddly, but that was an observation I made from the back seat of a car as a child so, grain of salt. And yes to google maps offering this for free as a part of their maps client. Not free if you're a 3rd party software developer though, as you'll see if you click through the first link I posted above.
- patcon 3y ago
  I like you. Your style seems great to me. The nit-picker talking about your "lack of professionalism" is not my preferred sort of human to encounter, and I would frankly prefer to hear from their sort much less often. I'd take 10 more ppl like you on this site any day