Re: [office] Excel 2007 != Ecma spec YEARFRAC. Not even slightly.What should we do?

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>]

Warren Turkal:
> I don't think that we should standardize the excel algorithms What if
> we just have a registry of compatibility bases that is maintained
> separately from the ODF spec? We could just reserve 5000 basis numbers
> that represent a compatibility bases and a 200 or so for a private
> area that will never be allocated in the registry for experimentation.

The idea of having a separate "basis registry" has merit.  At the least, it means we could complete the OpenFormula spec, and point out to a separate registry for that part of it.
I think it _would_ be wise to spec the Excel algorithms, because there are people
who count on them; but if they're in a separate registry, that makes things easier.

It doesn't address the problem that different people may want
basis==0 to mean different things.  The only solution I see for that is to
attach some parameter to the sheet (as I noted earlier), which can affect the
mapping of the basis value to the algorithm used.

--- David A. Wheeler