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Subject: Function names


I said:
> > Speaking of backwards compatibility: so far there's been no
> > rule so far REQUIRING that all function names will be necessarily
> > identical with OOo.

Eike Rathke:
> Of course not. Where necessary we may have to choose specifications that
> are not backwards compatible. For obvious reasons I just try to avoid
> them, or at least find ways to not break old versions completely.

Unless there's a good reason not to, if a given function name is
already agreed on by Excel and OpenOffice.org,
especially if other spreadsheets like Gnumeric agree on them,
I think we should use those names.

It turns out that covers the VAST majority of spreadsheet documents.
SUM, MAX, MIN, COS, etc.... in other words, the functions from "small",
generally already have that property.

I even think we should do so for the nasty functions BIN2HEX, etc.
Everyone who implements them tends to agree on their semantics,
so there's no point in using a different name.  If you want a different
function, you'd use a different name anyway.

The complications ensue when there are different functions with the
same name: either radically different (CONVERT) or slightly different
(WEEKNUM).  For the CONVERT and WEEKNUM cases, I propose that
we use the _Excel_ names, and use the Gnumeric convention
(ISOWEEKNUM, etc.) for the ISO date system functions.
I'm not sure what to call OOo's CONVERT.

Several stat functions have some problems in Excel; it's been proposed
that the "do exactly like Excel" have "LEGACY." prepended, and
ones that actually compute the correct answers or aren't as limited in
their domains do not.  I'm quite open to that... does anyone care?

I'm open to having a rule or philosophy for naming, but don't have
an axe to grind on what that is.  If anyone DOES have such an axe,
please speak now.  Since apps can tell the difference between
"oooc:=" and "=", NOW is the time to do any function renaming.
And I expect that many apps will start using OUR names, so let's
try to use good ones.  We can document any name changes, so that
applications can easily implement the name change and support both
"oooc:" and OpenFormula.

--- David A. Wheeler


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