Inasmuch as the underlying concepts are identical (more or less), I don't like the idea that we can use different key name or values to represent those concepts.<br><br>Sure anyone can tag oneway/one_way=yes/true/1/si/hai/oui/jå and write out all the equivalences in a likeness XML file, but this complicates use of the data for little benefit.<br>
<br>I think of some OSM tags as similar to the keywords of a programming language. Sure you can translate keywords like "print" and "open" into the native language of the programmer and then do pre-processing of the code or use a specialized compiler, but what for? (Take note that even programming languages that were invented by non-native English speakers use English keywords for consistency. Japan's Ruby comes into mind.) So allowing amenity=bankautomat as a synonym for amenity=atm even if they represent identical concepts is not really good.<br>
<br>Push for i18n on the user interfaces, not on the non-name data.<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 10:25 AM, SteveC <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:STEVE@asklater.com">STEVE@asklater.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I want to revive a very old idea - tag equivalences. It might be<br>
solving a problem that doesn't exist or someone might have done it and<br>
I've missed it.<br>
<br>
I'm not a socialist moral relativist when it comes to cultural<br>
comparisons, but forcing the entire world to tag their largest class<br>
of vehicular infrastructure as highway=motorway isn't super efficient<br>
either maybe.<br>
<br>
It would be nice to allow people to tag things as motorway, freeway,<br>
autobahn or whatever makes sense. Then, if your renderer or routing<br>
software knows about them, great. If not, then there should be<br>
something that tells them what they're roughly like.<br>
<br>
So I think step one is to have an XML file which points out these<br>
equivalences. It will be rough. It won't know that an autobahn has no<br>
speed limit or a freeway is usually 55mph or a motorway is usually<br>
70mph. The first step is just a hand wavy... I don't know what a<br>
autobahn is, but it's roughly like a motorway, ah ok.<br>
<br>
Then it will free us up to start to do much more specific country<br>
rendering and routing.<br>
<br>
Later, we can evolve it to be an API or know all sorts of things, but<br>
I want to put together version 0.1 and have people like Jon Burgess<br>
and Steve Chilton care about it because of rendering and Frederik and<br>
Richard care because of editing. I would want it to be required by all<br>
editors and routers and renderers in future, if it was to be useful.<br>
<br>
Therefore, here's my straw man to start it off<br>
<br>
<!-- this is a straw man and might not even parse as XML. C'est la vie<br>
--><br>
<likenesses version="0.1"><br>
<br>
<likeness object="way" key="highway"><br>
<likeness value="motorway" /><br>
<likeness value="freeway" /><br>
<likeness value="autobahn" /><br>
</likeness><br>
<br>
<likeness object="node" key="amenity"><br>
<likeness value="atm" /><br>
<likeness value="bankautomat" /><br>
<likeness value="geldautomat" /><br>
</likeness><br>
<br>
</likenesses><br>
<br>
If you want to hack on this, it's at<br>
<br>
<a href="http://svn.openstreetmap.org/misc/likenesses/likeness.xml" target="_blank">http://svn.openstreetmap.org/misc/likenesses/likeness.xml</a><br>
<br>
The point here is that if you're a routing engine and you know about<br>
motorways you treat autobahns and freeways as roughly the same, or<br>
identical if you like. If you want to then go on and figure out more<br>
details, please do! If you're a renderer and you know what an icon for<br>
amenity=atm is, then you know you can use this for amenity=bakautomat.<br>
<br>
The next step is that osm2pgsql uses this to convert things it doesn't<br>
know about, or the big mapnik xml files do, or whatever. There are<br>
glaring problems like maybe we don't want people to use highway but<br>
whatever makes sense for them - that is we want the keys *and* values<br>
to be mutable. But, let's take step one first.<br>
<br>
Thoughts?<br>
<br>
Yours &c.<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><a href="http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com">http://vaes9.codedgraphic.com</a><br>