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Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#111

Post by sidlls »

Lxr wrote: post #28
gregschlom wrote: post #17

Earlier 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!)

I'd rather not write a bunch of tests that are really acting as a static type checker or, worse, testing the Python equivalent of compiler, linker and assembler output.

That's what the vast majority of testing is when it isn't simply testing mock code implementations.

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#112

Post by stestagg »

rogerbinns wrote: post #90
stestagg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A bit dated now, but still a great read about a Python project done by Java developers: http://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html "So, the sad thing is that these poor folks worked much, much harder than they needed to, in order to produce much more code than they needed to write, that then performs much more slowly than the equivalent idiomatic Python would."

Yeah, I've seen that story played out so many times.

Best example I've seen was from a couple of Java devs transitioning to python, they re-wrote a system 3 times: 1st time: 35k loc 2nd time: 10k 3rd: 2k

The third rewrite was also significantly faster than the first two :)

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#113

Post by aidos »

weberc2 wrote: post #97
davepeck wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects This is empirically false. There are (of course!) good reasons to consider static typing. But, in my experience, use of static typing has never been a first-order predictor of business or technology success. It's quite possible to build considerable value with, for example, a large Python 2.x code base. A fun, and tangentially related, talk: htt…

That's not "empirically false", it's just not empirically true. Static typing is a big boon to software development, and I use Python in my day job.

The OP said "I believe" so obviously we can neither empirically prove or disprove the statement. We can say with absolute certainty that static typing is not required for large codebases, because there are large codebases that are not statically typed.

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#114

Post by ateesdalejr »

bdowling wrote: post #14
smortaz wrote: post #2

Clickable Link: https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-... [disclaimer+bias: on Python team @ msft & would love to see this happen!]

So, would this imply numpy and scipy support in Python for Excel? How about support for Excel worksheets within Jupyter notebooks?

No, watch them pump out some horribly supported python library .

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#115

Post by jnwatson »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #23
gregschlom wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

Most people writing VBA code for excel are only informal programmers. For example, I never took a CS course in my life but learned VBA and programming on the job. Since then I've learned python and other languages but when I'm doing a home project or something I always come back to python. It's just so easy. I was working on a macro the other day in Excel, it took me a couple hours to get it all working but I'm prett…

Unfortunately, there are several companies and hundreds of divisions of companies run entirely out of excel spreadsheets.

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#116

Post by Yuioup »

As well as agreeing to this, I would add the following:

* I would support both Python 2 and Python 3. Yes I know that the push to Python 3 is ongoing but there are a lot more libraries to be found for 2. Don't bother with IronPython.

* I would integrate pip or whatever package manager Python uses these days so that people can download their own modules and use them in the Excel sheets. Not only that, the packages should be restored automatically when the Excel sheet is loaded.

* It goes without saying that Python should be sandboxed.

* VS Code integration in Excel with full syntax highlighting and autocomplete - again a no-brainer.

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#117

Post by cheapsteak »

_e wrote: post #5

Dear Excel team, Take a look at the top three results for "excel python" on bing.com for some great ideas on how to incorporate python into excel. --- 1.) https://www.python-excel.org 2.) https://www.pyxll.com/ 3.) https://www.xlwings.org/

> https://www.python-excel.org/

The https link doesn't seem to work, try this:

http://www.python-excel.org/

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#118

Post by cm2187 »

What is interesting is also the implications of them now considering python.

First if it is python, it is not javascript, which seemed to have been their previous favorite candidate until now (not sure if it really picked up).

Second, the writing on the wall for VB as a language starts to look like a time square billboard. They basically put VB.net in maintenance / compatibility mode like webforms and winforms. I think it is clear that a new scripting language would be meant to ultimately replace VBA (which has been on maintenance / compatibility mode for 20 years!).

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#119

Post by chrisseaton »

weberc2 wrote: post #97
davepeck wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong, static typing is an essential feature for large scale projects This is empirically false. There are (of course!) good reasons to consider static typing. But, in my experience, use of static typing has never been a first-order predictor of business or technology success. It's quite possible to build considerable value with, for example, a large Python 2.x code base. A fun, and tangentially related, talk: htt…

That's not "empirically false", it's just not empirically true. Static typing is a big boon to software development, and I use Python in my day job.

Are there large codebases that are not statically typed? Yes? Then empirically it is false.

> big boon

But they argued ‘essential’. You’ve watered that down to nice-to-have.

Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

#120

Post by levosmetalo »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #11

An absolute no-brainer. Python is the new BASIC - very popular with people who have to program to do their work but aren't programmers. It's an excellent choice for a spreadsheet.

Javascript would be another example of language that many people has been exposed to.

I would even say it would fit better, not because the language is better, but because indentation wouldn't go in the way for quick & dirty one-offs.

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