[OSM-talk] Mapping canals

[David Earl]

On 24/01/2008 10:34, Gervase Markham wrote:
> Sven Grüner wrote:
>> I don't know of any country using the metric system that is familiar
>> with the term "kph". The unit symbol is "km/h" and so everbody uses *kmh*.
> 
> Google understands kph:
> http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=30mph+in+kph
> 
> So this is just another example of why allowing people to use any unit 
> "as long as they label it" is a bad idea :-)

'use any unit "as long as they label it" ' seems to be in line with 
(some people's) philosophy of tagging - use any tag you like, and it'll 
eventually converge to some kind of concensus.

Indeed, that being the case, people *will* and probably *have already* 
put units into these kind of tags, so chances are units are defacto part 
of OSM tags.

If CSS can do it, I don't see why OSM can't get to grips with units. 
It's not hard to process a unit string after a number. And there's no 
reason why such processors can't recognise variations either: km/h, 
kmh-1, kph; mph m.p.h. etc. because if there is no syntax check you can 
be sure every variation you can think of and many you can't will arise.

David