Hi Mark, Am 06.08.2009 um 23:52 schrieb Mark Burton:
I disagree.
The patch simply provides a means for those people who have complex styling requirements to "roll their own" styling engine so they are not obliged to use whatever is built into mkgmap. The presence of the patch will not affect the development of the mkgmap styling system but by providing people with an alternative mechanism, it will encourage innovation and new thinking.
One could argue that mkgmap would be better off having no styling function at all and it should focus on the core task of converting an input dataset (styled OSM) into map files (.img, etc.)
The problem here is that in the end you cannot separate the styling from the map conversion process. When I started using mkgmap I also used preprocessing. But then I found that my preprocessor had to duplicate a lot of the functionality of mkgmap to "do it right". For example finding all the ways that belong to a relation. It was much easier to patch mkgmap to get the same results, because all that information is already accessible there. But of course one could argue if this "convenience" is a reason in itself not to separate styling and map conversion.
Some thoughts about styling: ...
Well it's not what I would do.
Ok. Regards Thilo