[Pymoney-general] Re: Structure for per-country currency information

[Mariano D. <ch...@si...>]

Facundo Batista wrote:
[... snip ...]
> I have issues with the three structures proposed so far:
> 
> 1. Mine: Clearly wrong! The currency string is repeated and we can not use
>    it as a dictionary key.
> 
> 2. Darek's: Don't like the not-flat property
> 
> 3. Jeff's: Brings another layer of complexity: How do you choose (as a
>    developer) and how do you predict (as user) the inserted two letters?
> 

About Jeff's proposal: I think the "inserted two letters" are the ISO 
standard code for the country, aren't they? If they are, we don't have 
to predict anything, given that I know the currency I need to work with, 
and the country in wich I need to use it.

> 
> Before chosing one, keeping proposing others, or discuss the actual ones, I
> think that we must focus in specifying what we need:
> 
> 1. What information we want in the structure (or structures)
> 

My biggest problem with any of the structures discussed so far is that 
they seem to be too rigid. I think we need an extensible structure.
Maybe that's because I live in Argentina... and we have "experience" 
changing currencies (and even using "pseudo-currencies") at leaste once 
every ten years or so...
So today our currency is "ARS". But what if next year it's "Australes" 
again? If that happen, I'd like to extend and/or update the structures 
to reflect that change, and even using BOTH currencies at the same 
time... at least for a few months.

I like Jeff's proposal, because it links together a country-code and a 
currency-code. That way, I can use as many currencies as I need for a 
given country, assuming I won't be forced to choose an "ISO" code for 
the currency (what's the ISO code for "Patacones" or "LECOPS" or 
"Guaraníes" or any of the pseudo-currencies that the argentinian 
government created not so long ago?)

I'm sure the structure should have a country code and a currency code.

> 2. The standard source of that information
> 

For the country I'd choose the standard two-letter ISO code .
For the currency, we might use the standard ISO code too, but it should 
be possible to add new currency-codes to the structure, even if they 
aren't standard.


> 3. How we want to access that information
> 

I'm not sure how I'd like to access that structure
a) Given a country, access its currency(ies);
b) Given a currency, access the country(ies) where it is used;
c) both;


> Then, we could specify the structure/s that we'll use.
> 
> So, start shooting! :)
> 

There you're :)

-- 
Mariano