[OSM-talk] Numbers and i18n

[Dean Earley]

> Etienne wrote:
>> On 7/31/06, *Joerg Ostertag* <openstreetmap at ostertag.name 
>> <mailto:openstreetmap at ostertag.name>> wrote:
>> 
>> On Monday 31 July 2006 07:35, Lars Aronsson wrote:
>>> Andrew Loughhead wrote:
>>>> For me one difficulty, which I see as a barrier to entry, is
>>>> the tag system. There was a really good post a couple of months
>>>> ago explaining the UK etymology of "highway". So it now kind of
>>>>  makes sense to me that tags like highway=footpath exist.
>>> 
>>> Since we now have a complete mess with some highway=footpath and 
>>> some class=motorway, that needs to be cleaned up anyway, perhaps 
>>> this is a good time to introduce numbers instead? If the database
>>>  only stored type=14, then the user interface could show this as 
>>> Motorway, Autostrada or Highway, depending on the user's
>>> preferred language (en.UK, it, or en.US).
>> 
>> Sounds like a nice idea to me. But we would need some kind of 
>> central XML File coming with the introduction of this tag.
>> Something like:
>> 
>> ...
>>        <segment type=1>
>>           <naming lang=en name=Motorway>
>>           <naming lang=en_US name=Highway>
>>           <naming lang=de name=Autobahn>
>>           <rendering color= linewidth=  framing_width=... framing_color=
>>                      dashes=0:0>
>>           <visibility zoom_min=1000 zoom_max=10000000>
>>         </segment>
>>        <segment type=2>
>>           <naming lang=de name=Bundesstrasse>
>>           ...
>>         </segment>
>> 
>> This would enable us to keep these in sync on all editors and
>> renderers.
> 
> motorway != autobahn != freeway
> 
> For some purposes they can be treated in the same way, but for many 
> purposes they are different.

Can you expand on this?
I'd have thought that it would be a "fast road between major locations", 
just varying in speed per country.

-- 
Dean Earley, Dee (dean at earlsoft.co.uk)

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