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Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

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Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#261

Post by konjin »

Closi wrote: post #173
konjin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could act like you're responsible for tens of millions of dollars and hand it over to someone who can make sure it doesn't blow up. "We don't need to hire an electrician to wire up the office, I did my garage using uninsulated wires and it works perfectly!"

The guys handling millions of dollars should be trained in finance / accounting, so they aren’t untrained. Handing over to IT usually means their flexible spreadsheet that they can change as they require, turns into an expensive and inflexible black box that only IT can change and that doesn’t integrate with the rest of their decisions. Also the new solution also probably has errors and pulls currency info from the s…

Lightbulbs do not generally cost millions when they go out.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#262

Post by konjin »

listenallyall wrote: post #159
konjin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting they have logs.

logs of what? if a programmer hard-codes URLs, you really think they are following best practices elsewhere? further, how do logs help get back the millions of dollars that were lost?

Yes, logging with email alerts means that when a catastrophic error is encountered you'd know about it, instead of it being hidden for months.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#263

Post by vimy »

SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #252
vimy wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of macOS 11.0 there is no python anymore. You have to download it.

Really? YAY!!! I upgraded to Big Sur and it is still there... but I don't know if it is a legacy since I've been TimeMachining my machines since 2012 and things persist.

Hmm apologies, I was wrong.

The Catalina release notes[1] said they would remove it and I was sure they mentioned it again in this year’s WWDC but apparently it’s still included after all.

[1] “Scripting language runtimes such as Python, Ruby, and Perl are included in macOS for compatibility with legacy software. Future versions of macOS won’t include scripting language runtimes by default, and might require you to install additional packages. If your software depends on scripting languages, it’s recommended that you bundle the runtime within the app.”

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#264

Post by ogre_codes »

listenallyall wrote: post #157
ogre_codes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Excel offers the ability to name any cell or range of cells Except almost nobody does. It's not intuitive or the way it's taught. > Lots of Python programmers don't use comments or descriptive variable names either. You have to have variable names in Python. If you want to give them shitty names, that's your bag, but unlike Excel, it's not an extra step. You also have to deal with the fact that every cell in a rang…

Interesting, my comment was solely in response to your complaint about naming convention... you've expanded your criticism quite a bit. I already anticipated your issue with naming being that few people used named cells/ranges -- again, it's not even in a menu or ribbon, it's present at all times, what else do you want? Not "the way it's taught"? Well, blame your teacher. > You have to have variable names in Python s…

> Interesting, my comment was solely in response to your complaint about naming convention... you've expanded your criticism quite a bit.

My point was always that spreadsheets are poorly structured for complex problems and that the logic is obfuscated. Just pointing out additional issues. Nor is my previous post exhaustive.

You are comparing worst case Python programming to best case spreadsheet designs. As soon as you compare a typical moderately complex Python program to a similarly complex spreadsheet, things fall apart.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#265

Post by ogre_codes »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #212
ogre_codes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... sure? There are a fair number of ways you can mitigate these issues, but the way spreadsheets are structured does not lend itself to structured/ well managed code.

I mean... sure? I never said they did. I even specifically said I wasn't disagreeing with your overall point, in the vain hope of avoiding this redundant discussion. I was just correcting one specific inaccuracy.

Fair enough, my comment wasn't meant to mock yours.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#266

Post by tomcam »

gerdesj wrote: post #259
tomcam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good anecdotes, but I’m still kind of stuck on the whole you got to work at a pie factory thing

(Sorry, misty eyed recollection alert) I should point out that "pies" in the UK is a rather generic term. MBOs (mince beef and onion), sausage rolls, pasties, pork pies and quiche was made in this south Devon based factory, near Plymouth. It was a good corp citizen thing to attend the 1100 "taste panel" which was part of the quality process. Obviously Product Dev, QA and the line crews could not mark their own work s…

That was far better than I could have hoped for. Thank you.

I’m trying to understand what benighted people are not fond of pork pies and pastries. Let’s have a moment of silence for them and move on.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#267

Post by deknos »

yold__ wrote: post #26

I'm a research actuary working in reinsurance. Here is why I think Python creates more problems than it solves from the standpoint of most insurance business users: 1.) Environment management. There are many solutions for managing python dependencies, my favorite is Docker + pip. Good luck getting actuaries and underwriters to write Dockerfiles etc, and good luck getting I.T. to support Docker on Windows desktops. Li…

from your POV, what would be an better replacement than Excel? provided it's opensource?

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#268

Post by pjmlp »

rualca wrote: post #229
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great that you respond with succinct reasons. People who have used Python for some years seem to forget just how clunky it really is. I've been using Excel since 1990, and sure, it has its own warts, but Python is a very rudimentary tool compared to Excel. Python is a machine shop. Excel is a car. It may be a lemon, but it's a functional car. This is a great example of programmers not being able to see the fore…

> "Once Linux gets a desktop it will take over the world" debate from circa 1997-today. Pretty much all servers run on linux. Linux also dominates smartphones in the form of Android phones. Chrome OS is also linux, and it's market share is currently at around 6%. I mean, other than desktops Linux pretty much is everywhere.

> Linux also dominates smartphones in the form of Android phones.

Not really.

See any Linux specific APIs on the NDK official APIs?

https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis

Android is a mix of Java and Kotlin based frameworks, ISO C and C++, POSIX subset and a couple of additional libraries.

Whatever kernel gets used is an implementation detail for Google and Android device makers.

Can be completely replaced in Android 12, and the eco-system would continue to work.

> Chrome OS is also linux, and it's market share is currently at around 6%.

Basically Android (already mentioned above) and Web stacks.

https://chromeos.dev/en/android-environment

https://chromeos.dev/en/web-environment

Ah, but it does expose Linux you say, https://chromeos.dev/en/linux

Indeed, except of the small detail that as shown on the Google IO talk, it is actually a design similar to WSL 2, running a second kernel on a hypervisor based environment.

The real kernel powering ChromeOS doesn't get exposed to userspace and can also be replaced at any time, if Google so desires.

In fact, in a near future Android and ChromeOS can be running on top of Fuchsia and most consumers wouldn't even notice.

Re: Ditching Excel for Python in a legacy industry

#270

Post by everling »

klelatti wrote: post #234
everling wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quant here, at my firm we've deployed a JupyterHub server which provides users with a production docker image, so that analysts and portfolio managers can perform analyses without installing python, dependencies and sql drivers locally. It is working well and spurs interest in Python across the wider org - so we let everyone use it. Similar to in OP's case, I think the real selling point of Python over Excel is advan…

That's really interesting. I've been working on a JupyterHub / JupyterLab / Python based product for the insurance industry - choosing this for all the reasons you've cited. Would be really interested if there are any points you can share e.g are you using Kubernetes and if so how have you found it?

We use Kubernetes, according to our IT/devops guys it was pretty straightforward to deploy in Azure with Jupyterhub's KubeSpawner module + documentation. A few people are quite eager to learn Python / code in general, so we try to make it convenient. One common use case would be to work with existing excel spreadsheets, so the notebook volume storage should be mountable in Windows. The file upload/management in notebook servers is quite obtuse IMO.

If a recurring task can be reasonably parameterized then a Streamlit app might be a better choice in some instances. I've developed a monitoring application for our portfolios where I can track daily asset weights, underlying data points, computations etc. Not displaying code ensures that the output can be consumed by a wider audience.

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