Excel w/o vba is the ultimate in functional programming.
I wonder, is it Turing complete?
3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
31–40 of 78 posts
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#32"Ok, we're definitively in hell" - C Bel, 2018. This is amazing, computation in Excel is becoming a solid meme. I've got to ask (and I hope this isn't non-PC or some such), but is English the author's first language? Where's he from? I wish that I had Excel so that I could try it out! :) More about the choice of random digits, sin x + cos x, would be nice to read.
> computation in Excel is becoming a solid meme
Somebody said that a decade ago and the responses provided invaluable pointers into regions of PL-theory I would not have consider explored this well... Happy reading ;)
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#33Side note but what is the music with the video? I liked it
Dance Macabre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#34"Ok, we're definitively in hell" - C Bel, 2018. This is amazing, computation in Excel is becoming a solid meme. I've got to ask (and I hope this isn't non-PC or some such), but is English the author's first language? Where's he from? I wish that I had Excel so that I could try it out! :) More about the choice of random digits, sin x + cos x, would be nice to read.
I love Excel, and to show how it really is "better" notice nobody does these things in the FOSS spreadsheet wannabees...
I'm not going to argue that one spreadsheet solution is "better" than another as that is really a question of personal preference. However it should be noted that people do actually do these sorts of demos in other programs as well. And not just FOSS solutions but ive seen people do fanciful stuff in Google Docs too.
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
You jest, but people really do underestimate Excel. Yes, it sucks - but there is a reason that despite all its flaws, people keep trying to use it for things . (And no, that reason is not "they're too stupid to learn how to code") And I'm not sure the things that make Excel so crappy could really be fixed without sacrificing the things that make it such a flexible and useful tool. For instance, adding the ability to…
I work for NASA JPL... I think most people would be amazed if they knew how much “rocket science” was done in Excel.
Given the problems with statistical functions in Excel, perhaps we should be a tad worried?
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#36I should open this in LibreOffice :-)
Actually, I’ve been wondering how to create a comprehensive spreadsheet that tests all of Excel’s features. Kind of like an ACID3 for spreadsheets...
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#37Side note but what is the music with the video? I liked it
Camille Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre
I can't listen to it now without thinking about Mr Tourette [1].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mr+tourette
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#38Excel w/o vba is the ultimate in functional programming.
If Excel had just a couple more features it could be much more ergonomic and not even need macros. Specifically: anonymous functions/lambdas made with just pure formulas. Define a function in a cell like `=($s) => [expr]` (or something idc). Call it with `=A1("string arg", B2:B100)` or by name if you name it via named ranges. Functions are obviously a new data type, so you can pass them as parameters to each other or…
I think I disagree entirely.
The typical things one gains from higher order functions are things like mapping and filtering of data structures. Excel only has one data structure—the table. Mapping is done by writing the formula once and then dragging it from the corner to the whole column. Filtering is not really done. Normally use the gui to hide the rows to be filtered away.
Functions add in questions of scoping. How are closures supposed to work? Could there be some way to say “the function in cell A1 at the time and closing over the state of when cell B2 was last logically computed”? Excel handles scoping in the non-function-in-cell approach using $.
Obviously this all breaks apart when you don’t want tables where you drag things either always down or always across
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economists and data scientists. /waves
ANECDOTE TIME! And actually a career related question: I'm an absolute nerd for sports stats, and have a friend that moved out of the finance/BI world in the hospitality sector and landed herself an impressive gig at ESPN-of all things, as a stats editor. It seems a relevant jaunt (because all I know of her profession is that she's an incredible mathematician) but the gap seems wide just from a perspective of domain…
Domain knowledge is always useful. But can also introduce biases in one's analysis.
For these types of professional roles you generally see specialized teams in three broad groups: data engineers, modelers/analysts, domain experts. Unicorns sometimes exist, but usually you see T-type experience with depth in one of the three.
Re: 3D engine entirely made of MS Excel formulae
#40Excel w/o vba is the ultimate in functional programming.
You jest, but people really do underestimate Excel. Yes, it sucks - but there is a reason that despite all its flaws, people keep trying to use it for things . (And no, that reason is not "they're too stupid to learn how to code") And I'm not sure the things that make Excel so crappy could really be fixed without sacrificing the things that make it such a flexible and useful tool. For instance, adding the ability to…
you can recurse in excel. its disabled by default but you can set the max depth on circular references in some menu. I haven't used it since the 2007 version