On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 6:43 PM, Alex Mauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In fact, highway=path makes it easier on renderers. That's a bold statement for someone who has no experience running a renderer. > Without using highway=path, renderers need to understand every single > specialized way. [...] > Most renderers can render all paths generically. If a new access > method is added, no change is needed. What an absolutely terrible idea. This is astounding daft. If I have chosen to render paths for cyclists, horse riders and pedestrians on my map, why on earth would I want to accidentally render every other variant when someone adds it? If I wanted to render every possible future linear feature without knowing what it was I would use an elsefilter on planet_osm_line and be done with it. > Specialized maps like cyclemap > only need to add special rendering for their area of interest. For > example, a cycle map can render any highway=path the same, and only > highlight those which are for bicycles. Specialised maps, nay, every map would need to keep track of every single possible tag that you can add to highway=path just in case someone adds something new that you don't want to render, or you thought was dangerously misleading. There's good reasons why every new feature gets a new tag - it's so that you don't end up accidentally rendering things in a confusing manner. There's very little to be gained from lumping lots of things that you'd never want to render identically - no sane map would render cycle paths, footpaths and snowmobile-only trails identically. So what you're suggesting actually *raises* the bar for renderers since it's now twice as hard to render just footpaths. > 1. highway=[anything]way. Renderers need to know about every type of > [thing]way. Impossible to tag a multiple-use way (or ridiculously > complex anyway -- highway=bicyclefoothorseskisnowmobileway? I'm not going to waste time discussing with someone who can't refrain from adding strawman arguments to everything he discusses. So in summary - regardless of the discussions of whether the tagging scheme is better for the contributor, or from a data correctness point of view, please don't start bandying around wild statements about it being "easier on renderers". Cheers, Andy _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
