Re: [office-formula] Proposal: Drop "huge" group; any critically missingfunctions for "large"?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

A super set of Excel and OpenOffice
2.0x is fine for me.  A clarification though -- are the Excel functions
included in "large" jut the core Excel ones, or do they also
include the ones only available if you load the data analysis add-in?

Also, has anyone looked at Excel 2007
beta to see if the function set has been extended?

-Rob


"David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>
wrote on 07/26/2006 11:12:03 PM:

> We have our hands full just defining the set of
> functions up through the "large" group, which is essentially
> a superset of Excel and OpenOffice.org.  Thus, I propose that
> we give up trying to define the "huge" group of functions
at
> this time; if it's deemed worthwhile, that would be a reasonable
> "next version" effort. The "large" group is enough
to capture
> most spreadsheet documents, no matter where they come from,
> and I think that's really what people want.
> 
> Are there any "gotta have it" functions _not_ currently
> planned for the "large" group, particularly those that are
> painful to do without and have REAL users?  I'm basically
> asking those who use applications other than Excel and
> OpenOffice.org; we have pretty complete coverage of them.
> I do NOT want a laundry list of 200 functions to add,
> but adding a FEW functions to help people transition
> their data from other apps would be reasonable.
> 
> Here are some candidates that I see:
> XOR(Logical+)
> GETENV
> ISLEAPYEAR
> ISBETWEEN
> EASTERSUNDAY
> ISPRIME
> BITAND, BITOR, BITXOR, BITLSHIFT, BITRSHIFT; (BITNEGATE w/size param?)
>    (issue: how many bits are enough?)
> 
> Please speak up if these or other functions are
> "gotta haves as interoperable functions, and not in the spec".
> Any application can store the function using the local namespace
> (see the separate discussion about that), so any application
> can continue to use the other functions it has, and define new ones.
> The issue here is, is there another formula function so
> important for interoperability that we need to spec
> it NOW as a standard function?  Otherwise, it
> won't be in the first release of this specification.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> --- David A. Wheeler
>