On Jun 28, 2012, at 3:46 PM, Matthew LeVan wrote:

> I'd think it would depend on what you plan to do with the coordinates once
> you have them stored.  If you intend to do anything at all complicated
> (spatial queries, KML generation, your own custom maps, area/volume
> calculations), you might want to consider a spatial database extension (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_database).
> 
> I've used the SQLite SpatiaLite and Postgres PostGIS extensions, and
> they're fairly straightforward to setup.


Agreed.  If you're going to be searching on them (places w/in 50 miles of (x), closest to (y)) ... spatial database extensions are the way to go.

If you're just going to be returning them for display, it probably doesn't matter so much, but odds are someone in the future is going to ask about it.

(and that being said; I store two copies of most anything coordinate or unit related ... one for searching that's well normalized, and one for display purposes ... database normalization be damned)

-Joe