> It doesn't help anybody trying to use the data on the terms > implied in > the docs. Furthermore, you're deciding that your opinion (that > the > requirement to process units isn't onerous) is more valid that > the > opinion of the person who first documented maxspeed (that the > tag was > most valuable as a raw number of implied units).
To be honest, I don't know why it was first documented this way. Checking the revision history of map features it was first set as a numeric km/hr field by Andy Robinson (Blackadder [0]) when Map Features was little more than a week old, back in March 2006. To my surprise Andy is based in the UK, so his choice of specifying the units are km/hr seems a strange one - I could understand it more if he were based in part of the world where km/h is the default. But perhaps Andy was just documenting what there was already; as he mentions he has been involved with the project since 2005. As Matthias writes: "From the programmer's point of view I don't think it makes much of a difference whether the unit is stored in the key or in the value." and " Also from the logical standpoint I think the unit belongs to the value. But I guess opinions differ here." With which I agree on both counts. I also agree that these differences of opinion are similar to those about oneway=yes as an implied default. Opinions differ. Mine are that if a road is oneway then tag it explicitly, but perhaps that's because Map Features doesn't (currently) document an implied default. Anyway I've got to dash and get a train. I'll be tracking the rail replacement service from Bury-St-Edmunds to Peterborough and will see if it uses any currently not-uploaded-ways when I return. Ed [0] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/User:Blackadder _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
