[Mapcss] [Proposal] Use "area" pseudo-object rather than way:closed construct; generally, be less OSM-centric

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Chris Browet wrote:
>> Reason is that you can't decide on OSM data whether a thing is a line
>> or poly without looking on tags. For rendering, you usually want to
> 
> So? The idea is to generalize the MapCSS syntax.

That sounds like a good idea.

I went to SOTM with the plan to secretly push a proper area object for 
API 0.7, only to find out that it was already clear to every sane person 
that we need this, so no pushing was required.

So if it can be avoided to somehow infect MapCSS with the idea that 
"area = closed way with some tags", that would have the nice effect of 
making it work with future OSM data formats as well.

(As of yet, is it completely open *how* areas will be implemented. There 
are suggestions here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.7#Areas 
and here 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Frederik_Ramm/Ideas_for_API_0.7#Area_Data_Type 
but it has not been thoroughly discussed and of course the MapCSS list 
is the least suitable place for it.)

Bye
Frederik