Proposal for modifying gnucash to use exact quantities

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, 02 Aug 2000 20:32:44 EST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Richard Wackerbarth <rkw@dataplex.net>  said:
> On Wed, 02 Aug 2000, Buddha Buck wrote:
> 
> > I view "$/8 USD" and "$/100 USD" to be -similar- commodities.  You can't
> > add or subtract them, but comparison should be possible.  Conversion
> > between them is possible without an explicit conversion ratio -- the ratio
> > is implicit.  They probably don't have the same display function.
> 
> > Is there a sensible way to include that concept?
> 
> An interesting concept (comparing two values without being able to express 
> their difference). Where do you see that it might be useful in financial 
> transactions?

I don't see the similarity being of any value, because amounts are _not_
denominated in 1/8ths of $USD.

_PRICES_ of commodities are denominated in 1/8ths.  And when they get
resolved into amounts in dollars, you get dollars and cents, not 1/8ths.

> > What I'd like is to be able to specify to the conversion routine two
> > commodities and a price without having to worry about conversions within
> > USD or whatever.  Being able to be told that $50 2/8 USD, at $1.50
> > CND/$1.00 USD, is $75 3/8 without having to specify that $1 0/8 USD = $1.00
> > USD and $1 0/8 CND = $1.00CND would make dealing with exchange-rate tables
> > -much- easier.
> 
> I'm not sure that I agree. I think that you DO need to specify the 1 0/8 USD 
> = $1.00 USD somewhere ONCE. After that, that fact should be implicitly 
> available.

That sounds like a Prolog-like extension to a relational database, where
these "rates" become "facts," and things get calculated by doing 
unification and inferrence...  I really don't think we're ready to go
there, unless someone is excited at the opportunity to integrate
GNU Prolog into GnuCash...
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