[OSM-dev] One value per key? Why not one pair per object?

[Matthias Julius]

Stefan de Konink <stefan at konink.de> writes:

> Matthias Julius wrote:
>>>> Key uniqueness robs us of some cool things but we get simplicity in 
>>>> return which is a price worth paying in this particular case, I think.
>>> Using the misused thing called relations we are able to do most of the 
>>> things we want. But if there was a vote I would go for the unique k/v 
>>> thing because of the *non* semantics and *non* duplicates for an amenity 
>>> that is 'both'.
>> 
>> I would say relations are not misused, they are misnamed.  They should
>> have been named "object" and a relation would only be one kind of
>> object.  Then everything could be made into an object that references
>> ways and/or nodes.
>
> s/ways/other objects/g

Well, other objects, ways and/or nodes.  I would like to keep ways
(you could also call them multinode segments) as a linear geometric
primitive.  It probably makes editing a little easier and also
consuming of data.  Things like multipolygons would get a bit tricky
and less obvious.

>
> And it actually makes sense ;)

Of course it makes sense.

Matthias