Michael Dolan Dot Com

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

Rob Weir criticizes sloppy OOXML formulas that made it through ECMA review

Rob Weir is getting some publicity for this very specific critique of the flaws that made it through the ECMA standards body without any real consideration of basic things such as units… oops…

As I’ve shown, in the rush to write a 6,000 page standard in less than a year, Ecma dropped the ball. OOXML’s spreadsheet formula is worse than missing. It has incorrect formulas that, if implemented according to this standard, would raise important health, safety and environmental concerns, aside from the obvious financial risks of a spreadsheet that calculates incorrect results. This standard is seriously messed up. Shame on all those who praised and continue to praise the OOXML formula specification without actually reading it.