Re: [office-formula] CONVERT - big issues, and let's add the tons!

[Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com>]

Hi Robert,

On Tuesday, 2007-02-13 13:04:31 -0500, Robert Weir wrote:

> I think we can solve this all so much more elegantly by allowing numbers 
> to have units.  So, allow someone to enter "3 meters" into a cell, and 
> have it calculate correctly when added to "24 inches".

I don't think that would be a good idea. Too many automatisms tend to
confuse people more than help them. Apart from the difficulty of
defining non-overlapping unit names, especially if localization comes
in, you'd also need a new subtype "number with unit" to be able to
identify mismatches when someone tried adding time to length, for
example.

  Eike

-- 
Automatic string conversions considered dangerous. They are the GOTO statements
of spreadsheets.  --Robert Weir on the OpenDocument formula subcommittee's list.