DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel • Hacker News Board

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#21

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

I remember being so excited about this product that I sent a msg to the IronSpread team thanking them for their work, even though I hadn't even used their product yet. (I'd never done that before for any product)

It's great to see this taking off (and I had no idea it was part of YC until now), and am looking forward to future updates!

Best of luck to the team :)

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#22

Post by karamazov » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 6:48 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #20

sandGorgon wrote: post #16

Please take my money if you port VBA on top of your Python runtime. And take even more money if said embedded Python runtime is available on Openoffice as well. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360454

BTW, I'm not so sure Python in the right choice for this integration. Whitespace sensitivity is (arguably) a nice developer mind trick, however the target market for VBA are non-developers, who want to google for stuff, copy paste and get on with it. Which means, you cannot make assumptions about things like editors honoring whitespace, as well as the cognitive processes to rely on spacing etc. This is why I strongly…

With VBA, you can't just copy-paste code from google - it's rare that you'll find something that does exactly what you want it to do on your specific spreadsheet. Readability, then, becomes important - and Python is easier to parse and edit for someone with basic programming skills than VBA is.

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#23

Post by ivolo » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

Congrats guys.

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#24

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 7:55 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #20

sandGorgon wrote: post #16

Please take my money if you port VBA on top of your Python runtime. And take even more money if said embedded Python runtime is available on Openoffice as well. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360454

BTW, I'm not so sure Python in the right choice for this integration. Whitespace sensitivity is (arguably) a nice developer mind trick, however the target market for VBA are non-developers, who want to google for stuff, copy paste and get on with it. Which means, you cannot make assumptions about things like editors honoring whitespace, as well as the cognitive processes to rely on spacing etc. This is why I strongly…

LibreOffice already pretty much supports the language half of VBA (the other, probably larger, half being the APIs).

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#25

Post by ianstormtaylor » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 8:24 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #20

sandGorgon wrote: post #16

Please take my money if you port VBA on top of your Python runtime. And take even more money if said embedded Python runtime is available on Openoffice as well. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360454

BTW, I'm not so sure Python in the right choice for this integration. Whitespace sensitivity is (arguably) a nice developer mind trick, however the target market for VBA are non-developers, who want to google for stuff, copy paste and get on with it. Which means, you cannot make assumptions about things like editors honoring whitespace, as well as the cognitive processes to rely on spacing etc. This is why I strongly…

How many non developers do you know that would rather write in Lua than Python?

Which nice-to-write language is most taught in universities?

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#26

Post by hncommenter13 » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

FYI, for Java there's XLLoop (open source), JExcel (commercial) and Obba (commercial). Haven't used these myself, but looking into it.

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#27

Post by reinhardt » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

Any comparison with ResolverOne and why they have a better chance to succeed?

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#28

Post by vj44 » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #21

I remember being so excited about this product that I sent a msg to the IronSpread team thanking them for their work, even though I hadn't even used their product yet. (I'd never done that before for any product) It's great to see this taking off (and I had no idea it was part of YC until now), and am looking forward to future updates! Best of luck to the team :)

Thanks hkmurakami! - founder.

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#29

Post by hogu » Sat, Aug 11, 2012, 5:09 AM UTC

hncommenter13 wrote: post #26

FYI, for Java there's XLLoop (open source), JExcel (commercial) and Obba (commercial). Haven't used these myself, but looking into it.

xlloop works for a bunch of languages, python, ruby, etc... But as far as i remember, xlloop is more of an RPC facility.

Re: DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel

#30

Post by yukuan » Sun, Aug 12, 2012, 9:45 PM UTC

I think this is so awesome, I spent a summer as a lowly intern for a bank once trying to write up an entire debt model in VBA (bad idea on so many fronts...), and I wanted to gouge my eyes out at the end. I would've given an arm and a leg to be able to write in Python, as I'm sure many others...so excited to see this happen!