[OSM-talk] mark a way as secondary

James Mastros james at mastros.biz
Sat Jun 10 11:22:46 BST 2006


On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 11:47:28AM +0200, Immanuel Scholz wrote:
> I dislike the wording "highway" as a replacement for "class", since I
> think something like "highway=footpath" or even "highway=minor" is very
> confusing. That is the reason I recomment using "class" as key and
> "highway" as value (as example for german autobahns).
The reason for this comes down to a difference between American English and
British English, or possibly a difference in styles of government.

To a Brit, a way is a highway if it belongs to the Queen.  This covers
everything from the M25 to that little alleyway between buildings that you
use as a shortcut to the Chinese takeaway.  To an American, a way is a
highway, roughly, if it's big.  The word "highway" is often preceded by the
level of government it actually belongs to, as in "federal highway", or
"state highway".

As such, I'd prefer to see "class" rather then "highway" as well, since that
should cover anybody with programming experince, rather then everybody who
is British, but that might just be because I'm an American programmer.
(Living in Britian.)

	-=- James Mastros





More information about the talk mailing list