[OSM-talk] addressing

[Matt Amos]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Dave Stubbs <osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk> wrote:
>> sure, editor support isn't 100% yet, but why re-create a poor-man's
>> relations with name-based references, when we already have "proper"
>> relations?
>
> Because editor support is almost non-existent, and exceptionally confusing :-)

so lets fix the real problem! i'm sure everyone would like better
relation support in all editors :-)

> The advantage of using addr:street is that it does just work.

except when it doesn't - e.g: misspelled streets, deleted "in use"
streets, etc...

> The only
> problem being that JOSM isn't clever enough at the moment to
> autocomplete the field based on existing streets in the area. It
> actually should be a drop down combo box letting you select the
> relevant street. And it's entirely possible to cleverly rename local
> objects' addr:street when the street name changes. Of course once
> you've gone to all that trouble you might as well have made the
> backend use a relation instead.

exactly! so why construct such a relation internally, where only JOSM
can use it?

> I like the clean relation data model, but find the addr:street thing
> much easier at the moment.

it is much easier at the moment, and supported by OSM inspector,
etc... which makes relatedStreet a hard sell, but i think it really is
the best way to do it.

addr:street=Foo on an addressable element is basically the same thing
as route=LCN:4 on a way. and i thought it was well understood why
using this method for routes is A Bad Idea, even if it is easier.

cheers,

matt