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Subject: Re: [office-comment] Unit system tracking
Hi all, TOC ==== 1. Typing 2. Marketing 3. TOP 5 Major Design Flaws 4. Multidimensional Spreadsheets robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote: > ... > > At some point I'd like to do some experimentation with an entirely new > spreadsheet formula language, designed from the ground up to be more > powerful, with features like metrical units (1 meter plus 10 > centimeters = 1.1 meters), formal type checking, more vectorization > operations, etc. I'd do this in its own namespace, so as not to cause > confusion with the official ODF formula language. But if enough > vendors were interested, this could be added to some future version of > ODF as an alternative formula language. 1. TYPING ======== Well, in the last 2-3 years there was extensive interest in extending typing to spreadsheets. See e.g. this article: http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~erwig/papers/TypeInf_PPDP06.pdf This is true research done on spreadsheets and not just an opinion. Therefore I highly recommend it for reading. Strong typing is an issue that makes it in my personal TOP 5 of major design flaws of existing spreadsheet programmes. I filed this issue on the OOo bugzilla, too (see http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=79924) and included some of the useful comments posted previously on this thread. Please note that, as typing allows catching a lot of serious errors (I anticipate one third of significant errors), this is really something that helps businesses. 2. MARKETING ============ A basic principle of marketing is to *follow the money*. On the same idea, a feature that prevents losses induced by spreadsheet errors is really something that most big businesses will be eagerly to implement. So I have to disagree strongly against limited market potential for such a feature. Au contraire, most big businesses will want to adopt it. There are actually *two groups* that should be specifically and aggressively targeted: i.) the *research community*: - NO financial power, BUT innovating potential - implementing units will surely foster adopting this through the community ii.) the *financial community*, especially bigger businesses: - potential for real *big revenues* - strong currency typing is needed I even anticipate, that if such a product becomes available (from 2 independent vendors), a lot of countries would adopt legislation that would request financial institutions to use only software that has error-preventing mechanisms. And this is not the type of "ODF vs OOXML" discussion (which in my opinion has no real value; businesses will always invest huge sums in software/services, so the fact ODF is free, while OOXML belongs to MS, forcing you to use their products, has no great influence in IT decisions). Error prevention and preventing losses due to such errors, is however something very differently, that hits a business directly in its central plexus. Bryce L Nordgren wrote: > I'm not suggesting that now is the time to deal with the issue in full. > However, I wish to express my heartfelt opposition to allowing application > authors to drive the standardized expression of something already agreed > upon for decades by such organizations as ISO, NIST, and the national > standards bodies of most (all?) countries. I also strongly oppose letting developers drive the standardisation for something that is already standardised. From personal experience with implementing standards (in a rather different field), I fear that any attempt to standardise something after it was already implemented in a number of different and inconsistent ways (and therefore likely wrong) is doomed to failure. As this needs additional ODF-changes, I express my heartfelt opposition to let ordinary people do it. Most would regret it later. Correcting all the errors will be a slow and painful process. 3. TOP 5 of Major Design Flaws (in existing spreadsheet applications) ======================= On a side note, I have begun filing issues on the OOo site in this series. One issue deals with typing/units. Another issue deals with duplicate data and propagation of errors due to such duplicate errors, see http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=80139 and the blocking issues for that issue. 4. MULTIDIMENSIONAL SPREADSHEETS ================================ I have not filed yet my other TOP 5 issues, but these include multidimensional spreadsheet functionality (like default formulas per column and real multidimensional data) and a complete restructuring of the spreadsheet (most programming languages, like C and C++, and programming environments, like MS Visual Studio and many others have characteristic *functional areas*, like headers, separate debugging windows and so on. Spreadsheets are the only one to perpetuate the spaghetti coding technique and mix everything up in one table (data, formulas, results, names and descriptions, ...). I hope to find some time during the next days to file the feature request for multidimensional spreadsheets/default formulas (and sometime later the others, too). Sincerely, Leonard
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