I'd like to see perl integration, that would be rad.
Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
181–190 of 280 posts
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#182I hope they wont localise the function names like they do for cell formulas. Never have i met someone who enjoyed this.
I do quite a bit of VBA, but not much other programming. Could you clarify what you mean by localized? Just that the cell formulas cannot be (elegantly) accessed from VBA?
The formula names are translated into different languages so if you are used to using Excel in your native language you can't easily use it in English or vice versa.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#183"NO! I prefer VBA to Python!" Said no one ever :)
Thousands of people would say it if MS attempted to remove VBA telling people to use python instead.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#184Port it as a plug in to old versions of excel as first class citizens on release.
There's been far too much, "here's a feature people will use so you're going to have to pay us yet again to open spreadsheets" in the history of excel. It's shit. It's awful. Don't do it. Using rich customers desires to extract money from those who neither need nor want the new feature is a crook's game. If microsoft aren't evil don't do it.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#185Does Excel have a "plugin framework" for new languages the way Jupyter does? Ideally any language (Python/Julia/R/whatever) can be added by a third party without Microsoft's direct involvement. The plugin authors would only need to map a language or library's DataFrame mechanics to Excel's table layout. (Microsoft could even use Apache Arrow to represent the data.) I imagine there would be lots of possibilities by pr…
> Does Excel have a "plugin framework" for new languages the way Jupyter does? Ideally any language (Python/Julia/R/whatever) can be added by a third party without Microsoft's direct involvement.
Could they use Microsoft's old Windows Script Host thing?
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#186An 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.
>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.
It's also a fantastic general purpose language.
Why do you find it so fantastic? What stands out for you?
Python was my first real programming language, but I don't see anything very attractive about it now - save the libraries.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#187Much as i would love for the power of Python in Excel it is important that whatever is done is consistent across the office experience. Some of us old enough to remember the multiple versions of VB-whatever across Excel, Word, Access and that in itself was a blow to productivity. Yes they should choose Python, and in the process decide if it will be Python with a .Net library (standard and core as seperate libs pleas…
Very well thought out answer and agree with the consistency part, don't target popularity, target consistency
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#188Supporting R or Typescript/JavaScript would be great and probably closer to the Microsoft ethos (R is already very well supported in SQL server and PowerBI).
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#189An 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.
>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.
Honestly I can't imagine having to use anything else now. I look at every other language and it seems like a giant step back, syntactically.
Re: Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback
#190I made a prototype programming environment that is more like a spreadsheet interface into Python called Flowsheets that y'all might be interested in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Ca5czOY7Q
Flowsheets has become my preferred data manipulation environment.