Hello, I started to follow this thread for a while ago. I became interested on the other hand because there seems to be two very different views (or points of view) from people, who apparently know the subject very well, and on the other hand because some of the argumenting has been based on how the use of namespaces would affect the inexperienced OSM:ers - like me.
I truly am a complite OSM newbie, who even hasn't got he's first GPS device yet (and hence hasn't made any tracks either). I had to go to Wikipedia to find out what a namespace stands for (though I got a vague idea already from this thread). I might also mention that I'm not a programmer, computer geek, web developer, or anything like that. I'm a relatively experienced computer user though (but try to stay away from the command line, if I can :-). I do understand the idea of a namspace now, but I would need to know more about the practical implementation to know if using namespaces would feel too complicated to me. I have tagged a few roads and streets so far, so I'm somewhat familiar with tagging - at least in the simple form of it. Initially, I can mostly see benefits of using namespaces (supposing I understand the concept well enough). It seems to me that tagging would become more 'refind' or specific, in a sence that same tags might default to different tag properties, depending on the context. I don't know if this is true, but it also seems to me that there would be often less tags (or values?) needed, as the individual tags would convey more information because of the context that the namespace would give them. I also have a vague feeling that I might like the unambiguity that using namespaces would bring. Generally I feel that more 'structure' to tagging would make things more clear. I can see possible disadvantages too. How would it be to use namespaces in practice. Would they make the work flow less smooth? It would be interesting to see a few real life scenarios, perhaps a best case, typical case and a worst case, where one would be able to compare the case of using namespaces to not using them. I mean the whole thing, how an inexperienced person finds the right tags and namespaces; how many different tags and namespaces there would be; how to know whether to use a namespace or not in a particular case; would the required amount of knowledge for tagging grow, or would it just be different? And any other aspects that I can't think of now. I see myself as a possible test case for this matter, and there might be others hanging on the list too :-) Regards, Ari Torhamo _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
