[OSM-talk] [tagging] Current access rules

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 02:10:54PM +0200, Ben Laenen wrote:
> * without making use of the namespaces like bicycle:oneway=*

This is slightly tangential to your question but I take exception
to the way people use the term "namespace" over and over again 
in osm discussions. It seems that everyone believes "if it has a
colon then it's a namespace". That is bollocks - "bicycle:oneway"
is just a structured tag, or a tag with a colon in it, but it 
doesn't have a "namespace".

Namespaces are separate universes of meaning. They are required 
where you have two identical names that mean something completely 
different dependent on the context.

For example, if you were to use the tag "boundary" to denote 
administrative boundaries as well as the fact whether a highway
has a hard shoulder or not (slightly daft example but the best
I could think of right now) then you'd need a namespace:

admin:boundary=national
highway:boundary=grass

because knowing something about the one sort of boundary doesn't
get you anywhere with the second sort of boundary.

What you're talking about with "oneway" is completely different 
because the "oneway" property is alway the same, with the same
meaning, and you just want to apply it to different types of
vehicles.


I have no objection to people putting as many colons into their
tags as they like but please don't talk of "namespaces" unless
you really mean that "foo" in namespace A has absolutely nothing
to do with "foo" in namespace B.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"