> > I like to know why I'm doing something, and dislike being told "because". > > So far you've not actually come up with anything except statements of > > belief, and a few potential non-uses. > > > > I'm in the same boat - I think the flat namespace is a really really bad > idea and yet no one has actually come up with any good explanations as to > why it is the right way to do things. The only explanation that seems to > keep coming up is that new users find name spaces "difficult" - I am > certainly not in a position to evaluate whether this is the case (although > from my own perspective they are easier), and I don't believe you are in a > position to comment on whether this is actually the case. In fact, the one > relatively inexperienced user who has made a comment in this discussion > seemed to indicate that nameapaces made things easier.
Firstly, I don't actually think inexperienced users would care one way or the other, as I said before. The reason I don't want them is that they are completely and utterly pointless. So one last time as simple as I can get it: You have two objects: 1) piste:lift=generic, piste:lift:occupancy=5 2) piste:lift=generic, occupancy=5 So then we want to ask some simple questions: a) What's the type of the object? - in each case how do you know? b) What's the occupancy of the piste lift? - in each case, how do you know? c) Find all piste lifts with an occupancy >= 5. - in each case how do you do this, how do you know? d) Is the object a fish pond? - in each case how do you know? e) does the namespace let us do anything we couldn't before, or make it significantly easier? f) in the case that it doesn't, can you find me a simple question that it does allow us to answer, and that someone would actually ask? Sample answers below: a) for 1) & 2) check for the piste:lift tag. we know this tag name from knowledge b) for 1) check the piste:lift:occupancy tag, 2) check the occupancy tag in either case we already know it's a piste lift because of a), and we know the tag name from knowledge c) for 1) search for all objects with piste:lift:occupancy >=5, 2) search for all objects with piste:lift && occupancy >= 5 in either case we get the tag names from knowledge d) I don't know how to tag a fish pond. Can't do it for 1) or 2). Although I already know it's a piste lift, do I know enough about fish ponds to know one can't be a piste lift? Or I do know how to tag a fish pond (say man_made=fishpond) and so it isn't a fishpond as it doesn't have the tag. Again, in either case from knowledge about fish pond tagging, or at least what a fish pond is (human vs computer interest). e) We used the namespace once to answer c), it allowed us to check one tag instead of two. I count this as insignificant. The namespace didn't really help us here. f) I can't think of one. If you want to introduce a class= or type= tag again, then that's a whole different matter. The answer to that question is probably a lot more fluffy with room to manoeuvre. Dave _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
