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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

#211

Post by breatheoften »

auxym wrote: post #61
smortaz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) *

Transparent access to Excel tables as Pandas Dataframes would be so, so very awesome. I mean, MS implemented these really nice Tables in excel, but then left us no way to easily query them with something like SQL.

Doesn’t pandas.read_excel provide this?

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

#212

Post by breatheoften »

vvanders wrote: post #46
smortaz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please not matplotlib ... are we really stuck with matplotlib forever ..?

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

#213

Post by odonnellryan »

lafar6502 wrote: post #209

Maybe they read it here: Keep Excel application as is. Excel is OK without Python and VB seems ok, it's BASIC after all. Instead, concentrate on making Excel functions embeddable in server applications, this is area totally neglected so far. Think about server-side spreadsheet handling and calculations, that would allow Excel to drive business logic of systems. And maybe there Python would be useful, but i'd prefer j…

The best solution to this, in my experience, has been a data-backend for Excel.

No, I'm not talking about connecting via ODBC. Rather, generating Excel documents from a data store: which may possibly be versioned and so on.

Excel is not a good place to store data. It is good to work with data. It's really, really good to view data. People love it for that. But when you start to store a lot of data in Excel ...

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

#216

Post by mistermann »

auxym wrote: post #61
smortaz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) *

Transparent access to Excel tables as Pandas Dataframes would be so, so very awesome. I mean, MS implemented these really nice Tables in excel, but then left us no way to easily query them with something like SQL.

Someone posted a link to a really nice 3rd part addin on the reddit thread, on mobile so can't find the link unfortunately but was very well done. Shame on Microsoft for half-assing Excel for the last decade.

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

#218

Post by petre »

jimnotgym wrote: post #109
craigyk wrote: post #106

I'd vote for Lua: faster and less heavy than Python... Plus my biggest concern for Python would be how well the team can sandbox it. I know in this regard Lua also has advantages. Disclaimer: I am _way_ more proficient in Python than Lua, I just think Lua is a better choice.

Does Lua have anything like Numpy or Scikit-learn?

Yes, it has Torch.

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

#219

Post by alexeldeib »

craigyk wrote: post #106

I'd vote for Lua: faster and less heavy than Python... Plus my biggest concern for Python would be how well the team can sandbox it. I know in this regard Lua also has advantages. Disclaimer: I am _way_ more proficient in Python than Lua, I just think Lua is a better choice.

I've recently been using Lua, and I love it. That said, I find python a far more appropriate language. Think about the use cases and the ecosystem around python.The quality, breadth, and depth of the Lua ecosystem for the finance/education/data users of excel will lead users to favor Python.

The main thing that might be nice is tables as a data structure for spreadsheets, but somehow I picture pain.

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

#220

Post by fcrick »

contextfree wrote: post #169
cm2187 wrote: post #118

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 thi…

excel already supports javascript for custom functions, add-ins, etc

any interaction with excel using javascript clears the undo queue - even the action of reading data, or even not doing anything. Makes the system almost completely useless.
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