Re: [office-comment] OpenFormula: Excel FLOOR Function

[Leonard Mada <discoleo@gmx.net>]

Hello everyone,


David A. Wheeler wrote:
> Dennis E. Hamilton:
>   
>> FLOOR(x) = -CEILING(-x)
>>     
>
> True. What I _meant_ was that there was no built-in operation
> to do the mathematical FLOOR operation. After all,
>
> TAN(x) = SIN(x)/COS(x)
>
> But people would rightly object if we only had SIN and COS.
>
> We should try to make it _easy_ for users to express
> common cases, using the functions they prefer to use.
>   

Actually, this concept contains a hidden flaw.

People actually want to solve their problem. You might give them special 
functions to solve a problem in a dozen of complex intermediary steps. 
This puts usually the burden on the user.

Or you may devise the spreadsheet in such a way, that the problem is 
solved elegantly and without much effort by the user. This latter 
approach is better, but necessitates a lot of rethinking of existing 
spreadsheets and spreadsheet functions.

Just couldn't resist to post this comment. ;-)

I am planning to challenge a lot of the spreadsheet paradigms, as time 
will permit.

Sincerely,

Leonard

> --- David A. Wheeler
>
>