[OSM-talk] maplint vs. uncontinuous streets?

[Frederik Ramm]

Andy,

> I'll continue to use the flexibility offered by the current data
> model, until either the API is changed to prevent it or future
> developments give me a better mechanism. And along those lines, can
> people please refrain from saying that such techniques I and others
> use are "wrong", "incorrect" and so on, and more truthfully suggest
> that multiple ways are "suggested", "a convention" or even
> "preferred", if that's what you want to say.

You're right, we do not have a process to tell "right" from "wrong".  
You can cease to use the "highway" tag today and call it "road_type"  
instead and I couldn't say you were wrong, just that you have an  
unusual way to tag things.

To my surprise I recently found out that the API and database even  
support multiple tags of the same name, so if you have something that  
can be used by bicycles and pedestrians, you could even tag it with  
"highway=footway" and "highway=cycleway" at the same time, and nobody  
could say you're wrong (you would just be using the flexibility of  
the current data model!). Not that the popular editors support this  
but you could always patch one to do it.

As for the Y-shaped ways, you must remember that internally they are  
stored as a *sequence* of segments, and it is simply not possible to  
express an Y-shaped way as a sequence. So your statement that putting  
every part of an Y-shaped way into the same way "most closely matches  
the situation on the ground" is not really, ehm, correct ;-).

It is not only renderers that have trouble with Y-shaped ways, it is  
(to my knowledge) also our upcoming Flash editor Potlatch, which will  
only allow you to extend a way at its two (!) endpoints; the endpoint  
of one of the Y "legs" will always technically be a point in the  
middle of the way.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'