On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 3:58 AM, Apollinaris Schoell <ascho...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> in general the better tag structure and very common approach is to define a >>> namespace like this >>> >>> network=Orange >>> network:state=CA (or california to make it human readable) >>> network:country=US, but this is probably overkill >>> >>> this is much easier to understand for humans and it is easier to parse by >>> applications. packing all info into a single tag value by some cryptic >>> codes is tagging for a specific application. >> >> I don't think it matters if it's cryptic or not. If applications do >> anything with these, it will probably be matched against a lookup >> table rather than parsed into components. For example, if an >> application does anything special with county highways in Orange >> County, CA, it will notice US:CA:Orange (or whatever) and match that >> exactly. Or, if it only cares that it's a county route, it will >> notice that the network matches the pattern US:*:* (as nearly all >> county route networks are currently tagged in practice) and identify >> the route however the application is meant to identify county routes >> to the user. Or, most probably of all, the application doesn't care >> at all about county routes, won't find any match to US:CA:Orange in >> its lookup tables, and ignore the relation altogether. >> > > osm principle is to use human readable tags and values. it's a system > designed for mappers not for GIS experts or programmers. the hardcore geeks > can understand cryptic codes but normal people can't. if we want to attract > more mappers this is crucial. if we start to make osm a pure geek project it > will not survive.
The only humans who are going to see these particular tags are mappers, since no sane application for non-editors should expose these tags directly. And mappers who are doing anything with route relations should have done some reading on the wiki about it, otherwise they wouldn't know what the heck they're doing anyway. Once they see that US routes are network=US or =US:US, state routes are US:CA, etcetera, the meaning of US:CA:Orange should be obvious. And ideally, anyone doing mapping at this level would be coordinating with other Calfornia mappers via the wiki, which should have California-relevant county-road tagging conventions documented, assuming agreement has been reached. Or they'd ask for specifics on this email list. Which brings us back to the top of the thread... -- David "Smith" a.k.a. Vid the Kid a.k.a. Bír'd'in Does this font make me look fat? _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
