python isn't the bestest thing in the world but it's still a massive win for them, and a massive win for excel users. VBA had too many shortcomings and led to loads of scalability problems even for medium size apps.
Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
41–50 of 280 posts
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
>aren't programmers Also extremely popular with people who are programmers and need to do things. Sorry, this is a frustration of mine lately. Python is a fantastic introductory language. It's also a fantastic general purpose language. Newbies get turned off of it because it feels too easy, and they know that "real" programming is supposed to be hard.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
People will tell you that instagram uses python or yelp or other big name projects use python. Certainly, type checking is not Essential to a large project the same way utensils are not essential when you eat. You can just use your hands to shove all the food into your mouth.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
Last time I saw the Bank of America python codebase, it had ~6 million lines of code, was worked on by about 4,000 developers, and ran some core, performance critical functionality. Python programming is an aesthetic that needs learning. Many of the worst written, and least maintainable python codebases I've seen are by programmers/teams coming from "proper" languages and don't think they have to learn how to write i…
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Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
Instagram would disagree with you. Seriously, Python is an absolute pleasure for managing large web projects and the lack of static typing has never been an issue for my company (spend the time writing tests instead!)
>(spend the time writing tests instead!)
Every sufficiently large test suite will contain an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of a proper type system.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
Instagram would disagree with you. Seriously, Python is an absolute pleasure for managing large web projects and the lack of static typing has never been an issue for my company (spend the time writing tests instead!)
Yes let's waste our companies time and money by writing tests for things the compiler could guarantee for free!
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, would this imply numpy and scipy support in Python for Excel? How about support for Excel worksheets within Jupyter notebooks?
That's for the Excel team to decide. My personal hope is that they'll offer as a base: * Python 3 * Numpy, SciPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Altair, ... * Pythonic bindings for Excel APIs (sheets, etc etc) * VSCode's Python Editor + Debugger built in * Some sort of conda based env/pkg mgmt * Right-click, "Open in Jupyter" (data/code) *
Yeah, matplotlib, scipy and numpy are kinda no-brainers there.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#47Clickable Link: https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-... [disclaimer+bias: on Python team @ msft & would love to see this happen!]
Interestingly, the survey doesn't seem to consider education as a use-case of this - has your team considered that aspect? Spreadsheets are the most common way that school students are introduced to programming, and the only 'programming' that a lot of teachers (and others) do. There are heaps of reasons for this, but any even moderate programming (beyond very simple operations) in a spreadsheet sucks. Something like…
That's a very good point! I hope you provided that input :).
Our team provides a free service for anyone to run Jupyter Notebooks on Azure. It's currently a big hit with the Edu crowd. We're seeing lots & lots of universities upload & teach courses on it. eg:
http://notebooks.azure.com/richie
There's also an Intro to Python notebook on the front page.
Hopefully the Excel team will consider Jupyter integration, esp for the web-app version! You're right that it's a killer combo. Check out xlwing's video on using Excel+Jupyter - it's brilliant.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#48here's my feedback: embed sqlite in it and you're done. Nobody needs any more servers, you can literally replace a hundred thousand dollar "big data" center and team of PhD data scientists with a business school dropout. And you will get prettier, more actionable results.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
Instagram would disagree with you. Seriously, Python is an absolute pleasure for managing large web projects and the lack of static typing has never been an issue for my company (spend the time writing tests instead!)
Ah yes spend that valuable engineer time writing type validation tests a compiler could do instead of new features.
Put me with Op. I'll use Python for prototypes and small tools but get past that and I want a statically typed language. Not just for validation but also refactoring.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Python is great for scripting and for small projects, but I believe strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects. I wouldn't want to use Python for anything that's predicted to end up with more than a couple thousand lines of code.
Last time I saw the Bank of America python codebase, it had ~6 million lines of code, was worked on by about 4,000 developers, and ran some core, performance critical functionality. Python programming is an aesthetic that needs learning. Many of the worst written, and least maintainable python codebases I've seen are by programmers/teams coming from "proper" languages and don't think they have to learn how to write i…
Bzzzt - not really. Quartz in BoA, and Athena in JP Morgan (both built by the same folks) essentially takes Python, connects it to a bucketload of C++ and Java that makes up the bulk of the banks services, adds on a GUI layer, a pretty crappy object storage layer (shudders at Hydra...) and a half-baked object persistence layer that was always so slow. Sure, a lot of Python scripts get written for those platforms, but the heavy lifting -- pricing, trading, order books, risk systems, market data, connectivity all ends up being C++/Java, maybe in a Python overcoat.