On 30/08/2007, Shannon Skinner <shannonsnz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Did anyone else notice the Microsoft advertisement placed in yesterdays Waikato Times (Wed, Aug 29, page 8)?
Yes. There has been a lot of discussion on NZOSS-OpenChat. Defining standards is one thing. I've got nothing against that. The ODF standard already exists. Whether or not another is needed is a moot point. Some of the problems I see are:- Spreadsheets do not store dates. Linking a cell to a format to say that it is a date is tenuous at best. That format can be changed at any time and there is no guarantee that the cell was ever entered as a date. Excel is well-known for its errors in date-handling. 1st March is a Thursday, and the previous day, 28 February, is a Tuesday. And so on. In addition, I believe the function CEILING does not behave as per accepted mathematical standards (rounds away from 0 instead of next higher integer). I don't want to see errors perpetuated in a standard. One article that criticises the proposed standard is http://www.arstdesign.com/articles/OOXML-is-defective-by-design.html Michael