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Maps and directions should be separate programs, they fulfill different needs. In a more open-access world, you could build them both on top of the same data (I
by bo1024 8y ago
Maps and directions should be separate programs, they fulfill different needs. In a more open-access world, you could build them both on top of the same data (I assume you can with open street map).
- repsilat 8y agoMost of the time when I'm going to an unfamiliar restaurant in my city I don't want "directions" though -- I want to know "It's on street X between Avenue B and C." If I have to walk up 10 blocks and across 5 blocks, my route is going to depend on the traffic lights. "Directions" aren't what I want, what I want is to know where the thing is in terms of landmarks I know and can recognise, and that mostly means street names.
- sethhochberg 8y agoI think this is a pretty critical difference between urban and suburban/rural use cases for maps and navigation. I live in an urban place and mostly use maps as you've described - but when I visit my family in suburban FL, the closest major cross streets for the restaurant could be a mile away, on a highway which has the same name for hundreds of miles, and the street number for the business might be in the tens of thousands but you don't really have a concept of where "0" is. Turn-by-turn is much more useful there, if for nothing else knowing that your right-hand turn is roughly 3/4 miles from where you are right now.
- bo1024 8y agoI'm not sure if you meant to disagree with me (you say "though"), but that's exactly what I mean. This is a use case for maps (show a map and point to where something is), not directions (tell me what to do).