Re: [office-formula] Semantics

["Tomas Mecir" <mecirt@gmail.com>]

On 3/6/06, Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com> wrote:
> Hi Tomas,
> On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 17:22:02 +0100, Tomas Mecir wrote:
> > > That is the "C" locale, which is already used for all numeric content.
> > > You still don't solve any string-to-number conversion issues with that.
> >
> > Don't I ? What I'm proposing is that automated string-to-number
> > conversions, while computing, are done using the C locale.
>
> Now go and explain that to every user who hasn't a clue about the C or
> any other locale. I consider that proposal even worse than every other
> automatic conversion I came across so far..

If I was proposing to use, say, Chinese locale as a world-wide
default, then I agree, it would have been a bad idea. But - C locale ?
C locale is the same as US locale, right ? Nothing terribly
inconvenient, and it's easy, too.
Nobody is forcing the user to use the string conversions, if he doesn't want to.
Each user can simply forget string->number conversions if he wants to,
and he ends up with what you want. It's just an extra feature,
provided for convenience. Why is it bad ? Locale problems are not
there, I'm not aware of any others.
We want complex numbers, to implement them in a reasonable fashion,
string->number conversions are a huge plus.

/ Tomas