@simon If I had a penny for every time I've unpicked a needlessly complicated multi-polygon relation with tens of chopped-up shared way segments, and replaced then with two simple ways, I could buy us both a beer! 🍻 😢

Map for maintenance, #SimpleIsBetter , don't try to be too clever in #OpenStreetMap

(Oh, and learn about the #JOSM balloon tool - much easier for landcover, even when construction lines are needed to constrain it.)

@ilumium @CoMaps @organicmaps What are you sharing though? Location? Address? Gazeteer? #OpenStreetMap feature?

For a location, the [URI geo:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme) works, but is hard to type in without error.

For shorter links, [Plus Code](https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/) uses variable length, so locally you type less.

[MapCode](https://www.mapcode.com/about) also has short codes.

I'd personally never use this proprietary option: https://w3w.me.ss/

Each works for a different case - and apps.

@Edent Not just you - once looked for a trail map of Simonside only to find the Forestry Commission was using #OpenStreetMap ... which I'd updated extensively with trail details from my previous walks!

Thanks, historical me!

@lokjo #OSM should take the same line as the GNU General Public License (GPL), to quote RMS, "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy of the software."

So, if you want a full Planet file every 30S, **you** pay for the infrastructure.

@ZaneSelvans @openstreetmap I don't know about ridewithgps, but most routing software requires extensive pre-processing to take the #OpenStreetMap Planet files, simplify complex features down to much simpler networks (junctions, and weightings between them ONLY), and then use for routing.

I'd be surprised if this happens more than a couple of times a month!

So a changeset barely a week old won't have been processed.

Some routers publish their tag usage - may be worth a look.

@tomchadwin This gets to the difference between #Coding and #SoftwareEngineering

Software Engineering has writing code as only about 20% of the life-cycle. The rest is taken up with requirements analysis, specification, test specification, testing, and in-life maintenance.

If you put "black box code" into production, you deserve to be condemned to maintain it for decades!

Good code is simple to understand, so the next person can change it.

The next person is usually YOU.

@GarrickWinter I don't know about the quality of Canadian gazetteer data in #OpenStreetMap , but my technique is to add business data for the all places I use, then #OSMAnd and all data consumers "just work".

Yeah, I know, a new search can be bad, but the second look-up is great! 🙂

#StreetComplete is nice for casual surveying.

@robertklep That does sound particularly rough for testing!

Just as #openHAB did, #homeassistant is starting to act on a semantic model (which is good), so device config can only get more complex (the price of good!).

This raises the a fundamental question at the root of #homeassistant discovery though:
1) Configure the device?, or
2) Configure the platform?

Do you set location, floor, friendly_name, etc once on the device, or in #homeassistant on every entity? 🤔