11–20 of 129 posts
A simple scripting language, like LabView’s C subset, that could take arguments out of cells, and write to cells, would be welcome. VBA has too much gobbledegook for a user like me. Python could also be embedded.
There is a company called DataNitro that sells a Python add-on for Excell which allows you to use Python instead of VBA. It works pretty well, but I no longer use it.
Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html
The ideal spreadsheet should be a mix of Excel, Geogebra, reactive Jupyter Notebook (like ObservableHQ or Vue.js computed properties), programmable in Python, C#, JavaScript and/or other languages with the ability to embed third-party widgets like maps or custom charts. And decent data connectors with SQL-like query syntax (including JOINs).
As a programmer, excel would be so much more useful if it allowed you to do things like filtering and selects using SQL or some other code so you didn't have to rely on the UI so much to do filtering.
Try powerQuery (Microsoft’s addon for just this) - it does it really well
However, with great power comes great responsibility ...
Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Banks, insurers, accountants; I know a company with 100M euro rev per year that runs entirely on Excel with VBA. Their office car park gate is opened, closed and managed with Excel. It sounds crazy but the CTO is a cofounder and he found it is much cheaper to just do everthing that way. They have been running like that for over 20 years.
It isn't the language for everything, but I've found you can do so much with a spreadsheet and a little VBA. Optimization, graphics, math...whatever. I also figure the company you refer to has some real benefit by focusing on one technology everyone knows. But how and the heck do they manage a gate in a spreadsheet?
A simple scripting language, like LabView’s C subset, that could take arguments out of cells, and write to cells, would be welcome. VBA has too much gobbledegook for a user like me. Python could also be embedded.
Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html
Banks, insurers, accountants; I know a company with 100M euro rev per year that runs entirely on Excel with VBA. Their office car park gate is opened, closed and managed with Excel. It sounds crazy but the CTO is a cofounder and he found it is much cheaper to just do everthing that way. They have been running like that for over 20 years.