Re: [office-formula] Semantics

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

OK.  So someone who has a process
that takes a table of conversion factors from the web and pastes these
into a spreadsheet and then uses automatic string->number conversions
to do a calculation would create a spreadsheet which would work in one
locale, but would break in another.

This makes me think that we shouldn't
spend to much time on this area.  Specify how it works today in OO
(or Excel or whatever) and immediately deprecate this feature in the grammar.
 I think we want to be promoting a file format which encourages and
supports the creation of formulas which are invariant under locale changes.
 Automatic string conversions considered dangerous.  They are
the GOTO statements of spreadsheets.  We should probably make a whole
list of stuff which we'll need to define for legacy application compatibility,
but which we'll want to immediately deprecate.        
 

-Rob


Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera@zmsl.com> wrote
on 03/06/2006 03:23:18 PM:

> robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> > Interesting debate.
> > 
> > How hard is it to come up with a real-world example of a formula
which 
> > would give a different result based on the locale of the user
who opens 
> > it?  Not just a different presentation, but an actual different
meaning. 
> >  If this can ever happen, it would be a bad thing, IMHO.
> 
> I must not be understanding this question because it seems too easy.
For 
> example, the exchange rate from Euros to Canadian dollars is 1,369
if 
> you are in Germany but that will give you the wrong result if you
use 
> that string in Canada.
> 
> Daniel.
> -- 
>       /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org
>      /\/_/
>     /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment
for
>     \/_/  stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels
>     /     off of everything and let the problem
solve itself?