On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Hagar Delest <hagar.del...@laposte.net> wrote: > Le 10/02/2013 16:30, Rob Weir a écrit : > >> It does not follow that if "real mathematicians" do not use >> spreadsheets, that making breaking changes does not have consequences. >> That logic is nonsensical. > > > I said that the consequences would be very limited. And that using > "mathematicians using spreadsheets" point is almost irrelevant. > Some users may face the 0^0 situation, of course. > > > >> And again, it is mistaken to assume that the person who suffers >> because of a newly introduced error is the person who can correct the >> error. Just as with extensions, the person who designs a sheet and >> the person who uses the sheet might be different people. > > > Again, how many will be affected by such a sheet using this kind of > calculation? > But that's a good point for the extensions topic. > > > >> Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not angry. And when did I ever say >> I was happy about breaking extension compatibility? Quite the >> opposite. I've called for all breaking changes to be proposed and >> reviewed on the dev list. > > > OK, wrong wording. > But I feel that you were not that dynamic about the extension issue compared > to your posts in this calculation problem. > Of course, no plain text to quote but it's your activity that makes me think > this. >
Remember, it was I, and no one else, who added a new section to the Release Notes for breaking changes and called for all such changes to be reviewed on this list. So I think my "activity" here has gone beyond yours or anyone else's. In any case, I'm not saying we cannot make any breaking changes. I'm only arguing for them to be reviewed and communicated early so application developers can react and be prepared before we release AOO 4.0. All this pedantic argument about the mathematics totally misses the point. This is not a question about mathematics. There are multiple conventions and I could point to authorities from Euler to Knuth for saying that the correct answer is 1. But it is not question of mathematics. It is a question about how we make controversial changes and how we keep the ecosystem informed about breaking changes. Hiding behind one (but not the only) mathematical convention for this calculation avoids dealing with the fact that a broken changes was checked in without any review on this list and without any attempt to inform users and application developers about it. I hope we agree that this should not be how we do things. -Rob > Hagar
