[OSM-dev] "The Future of Areas" - open discussion?

[Ben Supnik]

> But doesn't an end-user's software have to figure this out already? Another question - how does OSM do this?

OSM is not one single piece of software, so I'm not sure you can say 
"how does OSM do this"?  You'd have to talk about a specific app, e.g. 
mapnik or osm2xp or any of the many other apps that interpret OSM data. 
  And...the end-user's sw does have to figure this out, and they may all 
be doing it differently.  In the case of closed-way areas, there isn't 
syntax that helps you, you have to interpret tags.