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Launch HN: Neptyne (YC W23) – A programmable spreadsheet that runs Python

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Neptyne (YC W23) – A programmable spreadsheet that runs Python

#63

Post by benfa94 »

Good job! i really like the idea and also the implementatino is really good for something totaly new! But as much as i would love to see this as the new MS excel i can't immagine this replacing it. I wish you good luck and i hope more ppl will start using this instead of MS excel

Re: Launch HN: Neptyne (YC W23) – A programmable spreadsheet that runs Python

#66

Post by Vaslo »

gverrilla wrote: post #8

I may be wrong, but most people that know python have already understood there's better ways to code than spreadsheets. Also, at least where I live, not even Google could undermine Excel's dominance. PS: I'm convinced I was indeed wrong after reading replies, because I didn't consider the interaction of coders with no coders, and this tool may indeed be useful. Nevertheless I maintain these cultural changes are very…

I can't pass something with Python onto my team. I have to work within the constraints of Excel. My team sees the value of Python but none of them want to learn it, and none will maintain it after I go. They do however know spreadsheets (even complicated ones) so those I can.

EDIT: Sorry I see you changed your mind - so what I wrote maybe wasn't necessary but I'll leave it here. To be clear I wish my team would learn Python, but most of them get promoted and richer without learning it.

Re: Launch HN: Neptyne (YC W23) – A programmable spreadsheet that runs Python

#67

Post by aarondia »

Congrats on the launch! I'm the cofounder of Mito[1], an open-core spreadsheet extension to Jupyter that generates the equivalent Python code every time you edit your data. We also think that combining the intuitiveness of spreadsheet UI with the repeatability and large-data-handling-abilities of Python is going to unlock a bunch of Excel-first analysts to save themselves tons of time by automating repetitive reports.

One difference in our approach is that the Mito spreadsheet goes from Spreadsheet -> Python code, instead of the other way. For every edit you make in the Mito spreadsheet, we generate the equivalent Python code for you.

In practice, this has been really important for us for few reasons:

1) A lot of our users are early in their Python journey. They might've taken a Udemy course or done some Kaggle classes, but generally they are not yet comfortable writing a Python script from scratch. Since they already have a ton of work on their plates, if the option is do the report manually in Excel for 2 hours today or spend the next 2 days writing a Python script to automate their work and save them those 2 hours a day each month going forward, they will probably choose to do it manually. By giving them the Python code for the edits that they make, its more like build the report for 2 hours today in Mito and get the Python script automatically so you don't ever have to build the report again.

2) There are 1 million and 10 things that users want to do in a report, so by giving the user the equivalent Python code, they're able to use the code they've generated as a starting point, not the finish line. For example [2], one really common use case we've seen is Excel workbooks with the following tabs: input_data, Jan 2020, Feb 2020, …, Dec 2022, …. In each case, the month tab corresponds to the same sort of filtering and transformations of the input data. These users get a huge amount of value out of actually having access to the Python code that they generated. The user will use the Mito spreadsheet to generate tab Jan 2020, turn the Mito generated code into a function, and then apply the function to generate Feb 2020 ... December 2022.

[1] https://www.trymito.io [2] https://blog.trymito.io/automating-spreadsheets-with-python-...

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