[OSM-talk] [tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - waterways/ditch

[Richard Fairhurst]

spaetz wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 10:08:11AM +0100, Dave Stubbs wrote:
>>  - and that it's possible to represent an exact mph in kph anyway if
>> you can really be bothered: 1mile == 1.609344km exactly
>
> Do you always carry your calculator with you when mapping or do you   
> do it by hand :-)

Slightly obscure point but I'd also add that the speed limit on UK  
dual carriageways is 70mph by statute, not 112.65408kph. Now I don't  
expect the UK Government is going to sneak in a stealth speed  
reduction by redefining a mile as 1.5km, but, well, I wouldn't put it  
past them.

I was pleased to see someone yesterday take up the cudgels for one of  
my all-too-numerous hobby-horses:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2008-September/011602.html

which is that a 'libosm' for client apps would be utterly wonderful,  
abstracting away all the workaday crap like downloads and invisibly  
converting units; it'd encourage client app development, remove the  
need for mappers to learn ever more and more, and give a bit of a  
respite to us hard-pressed editor authors (thereby letting us  
concentrate on important things like UI :) ). But as I'm not proposing  
to write it I shall hereby shut the f--- up.

cheers
Richard