[OSM-talk] tagging and rendering

[Chris Jones]

On 9 May 2008, at 19:55, Jonathan Bennett wrote:

> elvin ibbotson wrote:
>> Things humans read need to be human readable. The database should be
>> read by software and if it can be faster and more efficient using
>> numbers, numbers are what should be used.
>
>
> The best way of proving this would be to come up with your own version
> of the OSM server stack that used ID numbers internally, while still
> outputting human-readable tag names. How long do you think it would  
> take
> you?


Some database engines can automatically compress data by replacing  
common values with look-up value for a dictionary containing the true  
value.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/ 
dm-0605ahuja/index.html explains the idea better than i do.

I would expect its only a matter of time before such features appear  
in the open-source database engines.

--
Chris Jones, SUCS Admin
http://sucs.org