From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2007-07-27T23:00:30+09:00
Subject: Re: for matz to do

Dave Rose wrote:
> i'd like to see two new ruby language additions....
> 1.) in the sprintf formatting command a way to format for business.....
>  i.e.... processing payroll chks...with asterik fill AND commas
>  and space fill AND commas or anything fill AND commas to do this
>   *****$1,312.00
>  without having to write a separate def function....
>
>  ...and....
> i'm comming from BBX (Business Basic).... a new kind of number... like
> Bignum
> ...but Biznum .... where all intermediate calculations are correctly and
> consistently rounded. we have a billing system not written in BBX and
> it's always pennies off due to round off error ... there is value in
> this...because BBX has it and i've never had to worry about round off
> errors
>   
Being realistic here, in all likely hood you are the expert on this and 
not matz or 99.9999% of the Ruby users.

If this is important to you then at least start on the project 
(collecting the specifications and the like for Biznum, has this been 
implemented in Python or Perl which you might use as a starting point) 
and also look around for other Rubyists that are also interested in this 
problem who might help you. Set up a Rubyforge project and get things 
rolling.

Bear in mind the market for your extensions. The formatting you show 
seems to be only valid for UK or US businesses. Will this class be 
useful for French, Austrian or Greek business users, other countries 
probably have specific rules about how you do accounting (definitely 
different formatting rules) - possibly even depending on the business 
sector they operate within. This will dictate the pool of talent that 
you can draw on. If your solution will only work in the UK then people 
with a similar problem in the US are probably not going to be interested.

Adding extensions to the language just for business users in one or two 
countries seems to be asking a lot when you could simply create a new 
class to handle it.

Also when trying to drum up support you might consider your writing 
style, you come across as a stoner :)