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Subject: Re: [office] YEARFRAC, etc.


Rob,

OK but if I understand David Wheeler's point, it is the case that no one 
has reverse engineered the proper definition for YEARFRAC.

So, having "spotted the problem," have you suggested a solution?

Yes, a lot of other people have failed to come up with the solution, so 
how does that observation help? None of those reporting the problem have 
offered a solution either.

Here is how to move off dead center:

1) Agree that YEARFRAC has not been fully/properly/etc. defined
2) Agree that both ODF and OOXML need to have the same "proper" 
definition of YEARFRAC
3) Either derive one ourselves or in concert with others who are 
concerned about the same issue (others being a reference to OOXML)
4) See that both we and anyone else with a formula standard uses the 
result of #3.

Granted that doesn't provide many opportunities for clever remarks but 
none of that is going to be found in ODF 1.2.

Hopefully a good definition of YEARFRAC will be.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick

robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
> Keep in mind the history of these date basis definitions in OOXML.
>
> I first reported the problem on July 9th, 2007.  This became part of 
> the comments the US submitted along with our ballot response in Sept.
>
> Ecma, in their response to the ballot comments failed to fix the 
> problem.  They botched the definitions.
>
> The DIS 29500 BRM in Geneva, failed to fix the definitions.  For lack 
> of time the BRM decided to accept Ecma's defective text changes.
>
> So what we end up with now, went 100% through the Ecma, JTC1 and SC34 
> processes.  No one along the way has managed to correct these errors.
>
> These errors have already been reported, botched and approved any 
> ways.  I'm not sure repetition of the same process by the same people 
> is necessarily going to lead to great improvements.
>
> In any case, from the ODF 1.2 perspective, I think we have no choice 
> but to ignore OOXML's definitions and try to reverse engineer 
> Microsoft Excel.  It could be a good marketing statement -- OOXML may 
> be better at calculating wrong leap years and incorrect footnote 
> placement like Word 95 did, but only ODF defines financial spreadsheet 
> functions in a way which is compatible with current and legacy 
> versions of Microsoft Excel.
>
>
> -Rob
>

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)



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