[talk-au] General Observations.

Steve Bennett stevagewp at gmail.com
Sat May 22 05:36:37 BST 2010


On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 12:13 PM, Ross Scanlon <info at 4x4falcon.com> wrote:
> If the info in the database is Alpha St then what's to say the it is not Alpha Saint or Alpha Strip or Alpha Street and so you end up with lot's of extraneous results.
>
> By entering the full type of street, road, etc it's then just a matter of having an appropriate abbreviation look up table to convert from before searching going the other way is more difficult.  So entering Alpha Street will return the correct info but likewise so will Alpha St.

I honestly think it's a totally arbitrary decision whether we do the
interpretation of "St" -> "Street" (and vice versa) at the time we
record it, or at the time we generate a map. But we've made the
decision (we expand them at the time we record it), so let's just
stick with it and be consistent. We should also make our tools as
flexible as possible, to allow people to search both abbreviated and
unabbreviated forms. Even to the extent that "Saint Kilda" should
work, even though it's never ever spelt out like that. (There never
was a saint by that name...)

Steve




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