[OSM-talk] Tagging climbing routes and scrambles

[Steve Hill]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008, Andy Allan wrote:

> And full of frigging namespaces.

Yes - I consider this a Good Thing.

> Please, please don't let the stupid Piste namespacing infect your
> brain and make you wander round with a namespace-hammer looking for
> new tagging-nails.

I'm afraid I consider the piste (and other features) namespacing to be 
extremely sensible, and the completely flat namespacing being used 
elsewhere to be really stupid.

Namespacing makes it much more obvious what a tag is referring to and 
allows you to mix and match *any* features on the same objects.  This is a 
Good Thing.

I *really* dislike the idea of making decisions about which tags might 
conflict with eachother and which might not - we can't see into the 
future.  If you namespace everything then the problem of conflicting tags 
goes away, if you decide not to put namespaces on tags you don't think 
will conflict then you end up in a complete mess in the future when it 
turns out something you want _does_ conflict.

> british_trad = VS
> british_tech = 6b
> french = 6a
>
> Does the trick, nice and simple, no problems.

But makes it less obvious to people who don't have a good knowledge of 
climbing as to what the tags mean.  If you have "climbing:grade:french" it 
is obvious to *everyone* that this is some kind of grade for climbing - 
a tag called "french" really does fall into the non-obvious category.

I understand that various people have an objection to namespacing because 
it is perceived to make things "harder", but I'm convinced that if it is 
harder (and I, personally, consider it much easier) then this is something 
to improve in the editors, not something to prevent in the database 
itself.

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence