[OSM-talk] barrier=gate, run a script?

Dave Stubbs osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk
Tue Oct 21 09:32:12 BST 2008


On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Matthias Julius <lists at julius-net.net> wrote:
> "Dave Stubbs" <osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk> writes:
>
>> The real question to ask here is what the "clean-up" is meant to
>> achieve? Especially when the new tag does not really interfere with
>> the old tag, what does forcibly removing the old tag actually get you?
>> Perhaps a cleaner data model, or a smaller planet dump, but only in
>> the extreme case where you actually succeed. And are these worth the
>> instant breakage of tools you have nothing to do with?
>
> Unless these tools are intended to work on only a limited subset of
> the data they will break as soon as someone enters some data under the
> new tagging scheme.  I don't think it is any better if a tool misses
> half the gates in an area because they are tagged differently.


They don't "break" as such. They just don't get new data. In an
actively maintained tool the author will begin to see this as a
problem as more and more new data tagged with the new method is added
and add the tag to their processing in due course (when they have
time/in their normal development/testing/QA schedule).

>
> If a tool suddenly does not show gates anymore its users can notify
> the author.  It can go undetected for a long time if a tool just
> ignores new gates.

Exactly, instant breakage versus no new data -- and experience tells
me it doesn't take long for people to ask why their new stuff isn't
showing up on X. You either have an unstable, brittle system or one
which is a bit out of date, and I know which I prefer.

Dave




More information about the talk mailing list