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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#141

Post by localhost »

cableshaft wrote: post #13

I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, but regardless I think this will still be huge and single-handedly modernizes Excel by a large margin. This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. I can think of a past project at a previous job I did building an analytics website used only by a handful of people internally that cou…

There are few key reasons for running in a hypervisor isolated container on Azure with no access to the Internet:

- We can guarantee a consistent experience for all users. Imagine having to maintain your own local distribution of Python and guaranteeing that it works with Excel as versions diverge over time? Yikes.

- We make it possible to share your Excel workbook with other users and have the calculation just work. That wouldn't work with random local installs of Python and users would be super frustrated by this.

- Security. Imagine opening an Excel workbook that can execute Python code running locally as you.

Also, I totally agree with your second point. Trying to write an internal app in Python that integrates with all of your existing IT infrastructure is an exercise in frustration at best. Excel is already part of the IT infrastructure virtually everywhere and is a programmable reactive canvas.

Disclosure: I work on the design team for the feature.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#143

Post by baz00 »

ayhanfuat wrote: post #130
baz00 wrote: post #81

I have to see some red flags here. The very nature and power of Excel comes from the fact that workbooks can stand alone. This means that the process is eternally tied to the cloud now. So when you, 3 years down the line, have to open a workbook from your deceased colleague, you are at the whim of the vendor supporting the existence of this integration. Step one of any workload will always be "work out how to make th…

I think this is easier to manage to be honest. They are using Anaconda distributions so if you tie each workbook to a distribution with possibility to update/rollback it makes things a lot easier than trying to manage a local installation.

Try explaining that to the dude who inherited the workbook in 9 months who doesn't know what Anaconda is, barely knows what Python is and was told that his job was Excel which he's really good at because he did a Udemy course on it 3 years ago.

That's the problem.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#144

Post by bafe »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #17
bigfudge wrote: post #2

If this is true then it will be amazing and very widely adopted. Pandas in Excel would be cool. Fingers crossed.

Why? Libreoffice calc had python for years now and nobody cared: https://help.libreoffice.org/6.3/en-US/text/sbasic/python/py...

I love free software as much as anyone, but when I'm forced to use a spreadsheet I'm glad we get office at work. The UI/UX of LibreOffice could use a lot of improvements

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#145

Post by twobitshifter »

It’s interesting but if you are good enough at Python, can’t you already write to and read from spreadsheets? Maybe moving up a Python excel library like xlrd and openpyxl and making it reactive would be more worthwhile for Microsoft. Writing Python code in that little formula bar as shown doesn’t seem attractive. Writing Python in VSCode and seeing the results appear in the spreadsheet in real time would be great though.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#146

Post by rawgabbit »

taylodl wrote: post #57
cableshaft wrote: post #13

I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, but regardless I think this will still be huge and single-handedly modernizes Excel by a large margin. This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. I can think of a past project at a previous job I did building an analytics website used only by a handful of people internally that cou…

> This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data I catch flak for this all the time! Our users just want to be able to use Excel to free-form analyze their data. IT, of which I'm a part of, insists on building web apps to do that for them. They're never happy because all they wanted was Excel. I keep explaining all we have to do is build a data mart built using SQL Server, and use o…

To be fair, Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, and Tableau Cloud are great if expensive products. With Tableau Prep, you get a visual ETL tool. Being technical, I prefer SQL, but for business folks Tableau Prep is more of a REPL so they see what their actions are going to do. They can schedule these Prep flows in Tableau Cloud which will ETL and produce daily datasets which users can then interact via the dashboards on Tableau Cloud.

IMO, Excel is on the right path with out of the box connectors to Salesforce, Azure databases, etc. What it really needs is full blown SQL with REPL output so the users can see the effects of their SQL. (The way Tableau Prep does it is that it defaults to a sampling of rows to output immediate results). There used to be a Microsoft service called Excel online but it was another thing you had to buy and was super confusing. Excel needs to let users schedule their ETL/datasets in SharePoint online and then let other users subscribe to it. They can call it Excel Super+ and charge a small fortune. I am positive there are people with their wallets open.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#147

Post by rjmunro »

sixothree wrote: post #69
inglor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi I work on Excel, can you write a summary of why that's important to you and send it to bgruenbaum@microsoft.com ? I'll get it in front of a PM. Alternatively PMs read all the feedback sent via the feedback UI on Excel web and desktop so you can use that instead if you prefer.

Can you just please fix the issue with date strings (such as "20230822090811") being converted into scientific notation? I've received literally hundreds of these documents over the past decade. And as long as this problem exists, I will keep receiving them. Can you please just add a button - "unmess this document"? The number of man-hours I've wasted re-creating documents is countless. My job is to do other things n…

Excel makes a total mess of many kinds of imports, assuming they are dates when they are not or assuming US vs UK formats dates etc. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-renam...

However, to my eyes, and probably most people, 20230822090811 does not look like a "date string", it's a number. It's correct to display it as scientific notation if it's too many digits to fit into the width of a cell. Please let's not encourage them to interpret more things as dates and randomly break people's workflows.

Excel should preserve all the digits you enter in the cell even if it doesn't display them, though. That has nothing to do with dates. It's a problem with things like product numbers or keys that can end up with many digits.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#149

Post by _untra_ »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #109

I was so excited about Python in Excel, until it said "run in the cloud." There just doesn't seem to be any reason for this except to tie you into their cloud service. It feels so much like protecting me from unsafe printer ink. I'm generally a fan of MS Office products and try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Please help me think of a plausibly good reason for requiring Python to run in the cloud, that is not…

Not asking customers to manage a local python installation is one thing, although I totally understand how excel + python power users would likely be comfortable bringing and maintaining their own python runtime.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#150

Post by snickerbockers »

localhost wrote: post #141
cableshaft wrote: post #13

I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, but regardless I think this will still be huge and single-handedly modernizes Excel by a large margin. This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. I can think of a past project at a previous job I did building an analytics website used only by a handful of people internally that cou…

There are few key reasons for running in a hypervisor isolated container on Azure with no access to the Internet: - We can guarantee a consistent experience for all users. Imagine having to maintain your own local distribution of Python and guaranteeing that it works with Excel as versions diverge over time? Yikes. - We make it possible to share your Excel workbook with other users and have the calculation just work.…

I agree with point 3, but points one and two don't make any sense because games have been skipping with Python scripting for decades and this is never a problem. The python interpreter is embedded into your program as a library and it doesn't have any dependency on the whatever python version the user installed.
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