Implementing alternate "compatibility" functions (such as 0^0 = ERROR)

[Andrew Douglas Pitonyak]

On 02/22/2013 04:51 AM, Michael Meeks wrote:
> On Thu, 2013-02-21 at 21:50 -0600, Norbert Thiebaud wrote:
>> The issue is purely academic, but if it _has_ to be resolved then yes
>> a compatibility mode has a much better value that creating an
>> 'alternate' function.
> 	True - though clearly there is some residual benefit in importing ODF
> files with this sort of function in them - luckily there is a ~zero
> deployed-base of that so far.
>
> 	As a general yard-stick, we take function compatibility with Excel
> extremely seriously - it is clearly imperative to our users to have
> confidence that their spreadsheets continue to work as they move to the
> world of ODF implementations.
>
> 	Having said that - when it comes to corner-cases we have much bigger
> problems in this area than this issue. One example would be the absence
> of a true 'boolean' type in our core; such that when you run the
> gnumeric test sheet here:
>
> http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnumeric/plain/samples/excel/operator.xls
>
> 	you can ponder at length whether: '=TRUE() > "Liz"' should be true or
> false for example ;-)
>
> 	So - IMHO there is little value at all in further discussion on this
> topic, and backwards-compatibility with ODF + numeric sanity trumps the
> corner-case at least until we have a much more consistent set of
> corner-case solutions.
>
> 	But of course, I would defer to the calc team; and as Tor and Norbert
> says - -strongly- discourage an endless bike-shed on this from those
> outside the set of people who have already contributed code to calc.
>
> 	All the best :-)
>
> 		Michael.
>
My opinion is that it is probably useful to document any known issues, 
especially issues that may be considered for implementation. If we are 
able to identify issues, especially issues with "easy" solutions, then 
those can be added to the list of easy things to do in LO for new 
contributors.

Norbert, along this same line, you stated:

> I think there are many more interop problems with much more visible
> and real-life effect that would be a better use of one's time.

Do you consider any of these "visible" issues as something that can be posed as "easy things for a developer new to LO to attempt"?


-- 
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php