On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Pedro Giffuni <p...@apache.org> wrote: > Man.. do I have to repeat everything again? > > > ----- Messaggio originale ----- >> Da: Rob Weir <> >> And so it is clear, my technical objection is: >> >> Backwards compatibility of spreadsheet documents, and calculations >> specifically, is critical. If AOO 4.0 returns results that are even a >> penny different than earlier versions than this would be a severe >> defect. If we found such a defect even the day before a major release >> we would probably treat it as a "stop ship" blocking issue. Any >> change that breaks backwards compatibility is a technical issue. >> > > Breaking backwards compatibility is acceptable for 4.0 Release given > that we are attempting to comply with a stricter standard. If it were > prohibited to do such changes then other Apache Projects would be in > big trouble: look at Apache Lucene: >
I am not talking about backwards compatibility in general. I am talking specifically about spreadsheet formulas. We have never had a discussion, and certainly not consensus, about breaking spreadsheet formula backwards compatibility for AOO 4.0. If I am in error in this, please point me to the thread. > http://lucene.apache.org/core/4_1_0/changes/Changes.html > We are talking about spreadsheet formula evaluation in AOO 4,0. I'm not talking about Lucerne. > > The same number of compatibility-related changes than optimizations! > > >> Fact: Pedro's patch changes the results of spreadsheet calculations >> in OpenOffice, introducing an error where there was not one before. >> > > OOo already has plenty of functions that give backwards > incompatible results with previous versions of OOo and > Symphony (which is rather crappy). atanh, asinh, erf, > everything in SAL has needed continued revisions. > I have not seen anything that took a legitimate formula and changed it to an error. I'm not ab absolutist. I'm willing to consider changes at the 8th decimal points. But not gross level breaks in compatibility. >> Finally, treating 0^0 == 1 is very common in programming languages and >> spreadsheets, being the value returned by OpenOffice since 1.0, as >> well as by Calligra Sheets, Google Docs, Symphony, LibreOffice, Java, >> C, and .NET. Anyone arguing that the value is incorrect faces a >> mountain of contrary opinion and practice. >> > > So far you have failed to produce an example of reasonable use where > such incompatibility is evident. > For purposes of a veto I only need to show that I have a technical objection. -Rob > Oh, and Microsoft Excel, which holds a bigger market share than all the above > mentioned alternatives is evidently buried within such mountain. :). > > Is this really the best you got? Why not take my offer and give it a two > weeks thought? You may come up with something more elaborate. > > Pedro.
