davipt wrote:I didn't get your point here. Agreed with the shield types, but my point was about
Not wanting to hijack the thread with discussions about shields, but I'm simply saying an easy way to represent the various shield types for each country as a simple 'value'. The segment street name would still be used as the shield 'value' as that is stored already without duplicating it, hence still free form text and not a fixed number.
Binary 00000000 ( or null ) = No shield. NULL values, contrary to where was elsewhere stated does NOT necessarily occupy additional space for storage, it simply has zero length indicated or is not present, which is why nullable columns are traditionally stored at the END of the data row.
Binary 00000001 (1) = shield type 1, eg. National routes, with a predetermined population method, and specific graphic associated for the generation. ( Nnn ) in my case.
Binary 00000010 (2) = Shield type 2, eg. Metroplitan routes, with it's own style & graphic ( Mnn ) in my case
Binary 00000100 (4) = Shield type 3, Primary routes (Rnn) etc. etc.
In older processors bitwise operations was far faster than comparing two register values or register vs memory value or memory vs memory. Not predominantly the case any more with current processors, but still faster in general if you redo the same thing millions times over. How stuff is represented in a DB does ultimately affect CPU usage when dealing with comparisons from selecting data, and comparing freeform text vs enumerated fields are far more expensive in CPU cycle costs. Freeform tags, if allowed in input data, will likely ultimately be saved as 'dedicated' data anyway where the metadata matches the relevant 'freeform' tags in terms of columnar representation.
Something we do agree on is we have no idea how it's represented in the back-end or what is used for the storage engine(s) and where the various data bits are, so all of this is just speculation.
we also have no idea what Waze has in mind for 'fixing' this.
Please note that we are all entitled to our opinions and views, and can freely air them without having to resort to character attacks on other people just because they don't agree with your viewpoint.
You say it's an easy win to use the Alt Name for Alt tags. I say it's not a good idea to allow freeform tags here as data has to be further disseminated and syntactically checked AFTER entry to add the additional tags in the background, some for the TTS engine, some for the search engines, and some more for shield data. A good design does not need data to be reworked after entry - it uses it optimally in the way it's captured.