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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#261

Post by rvba »

vba wrote: post #249

This was a nice surprise to see today as an Ex-Excel developer who worked on trying to bring Python to Excel (and, I guess, failing ;)). 7+ years ago I had the option of leaving the Excel team. My then boss’s boss knew I had an interest in bringing Python to Excel and offered me a chance to tackle it if I chose to stay. What was meant to be a 6 month project turned into a ~3 year project, the Python part faded away a…

Do you know why Microsoft never made proper examples of the new technology? The few examples provided are for programmers only.

In general there is a scarcity of working code that you can inspect to see how javascript in Excel works.

Now it is mostly "how to draw an owl"

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#263

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #196
mulmen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s one of the most infuriating and dangerous behaviors I have ever encountered. Excel silently truncates data . The anger is warranted. The problem isn’t assuming a display format for data, it is that a poor assumption actually mangles data. Excel doesn’t fail safe. Numbers in Excel only maintain 15 digits of precision. Leading zeros are also truncated . If you haven’t experienced this you are lucky (or just didn’t…

> It’s one of the most infuriating and dangerous behaviors I have ever encountered. Excel silently truncates data. That's a problem, sure, but not the one sixothree is complaining about. > The problem isn’t assuming a display format for data Your problem might not be, but that’s exactly the problem sixothree is complaining about that the post you are responding to addresses, so while your post references a valid comp…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#264

Post by rich_sasha »

gpjt wrote: post #100

Back in 2005, some friends and I started a company called Resolver Systems to build a Python-enabled spreadsheet, which we called Resolver One. Sadly, it never took off in the marketplace, and we had to pivot; we would up creating PythonAnywhere, an online coding and hosting environment, which worked out pretty well and was acquired by Anaconda last year. And now, the circle is closed :-) (Just for clarity: the team…

PythonAnywhere is awesome :) like the other commenter it was my first foray into web programming too!

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#265

Post by xcombelle »

hyperpl wrote: post #10

My main dependence on Excel is being able to interact with pivot tables. I also have some VBA macros to help with formatting which I would welcome to be in python - alas it looks like what they're bringing is for the cloud only? I haven't found any free, open source solutions around this including any for Jupyter notebooks (my preferred medium).

python pandas has pivot tables https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/reference/api/pandas.pivot_ta...

I don't know if it fits your needs

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#266

Post by jakzurr »

vba wrote: post #249

This was a nice surprise to see today as an Ex-Excel developer who worked on trying to bring Python to Excel (and, I guess, failing ;)). 7+ years ago I had the option of leaving the Excel team. My then boss’s boss knew I had an interest in bringing Python to Excel and offered me a chance to tackle it if I chose to stay. What was meant to be a 6 month project turned into a ~3 year project, the Python part faded away a…

That's really an interesting story; thanks for sharing it.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#267

Post by [deleted] »

fzumstein wrote: post #254
vba wrote: post #249

This was a nice surprise to see today as an Ex-Excel developer who worked on trying to bring Python to Excel (and, I guess, failing ;)). 7+ years ago I had the option of leaving the Excel team. My then boss’s boss knew I had an interest in bringing Python to Excel and offered me a chance to tackle it if I chose to stay. What was meant to be a 6 month project turned into a ~3 year project, the Python part faded away a…

Thanks for your work! The async JS functions are amazing and allowed me to ship rock-solid Custom functions with xlwings and Python. The problem with Office.js is that it’s just simply too hard to get started with all the npm bloat for the average Excel user (even more professional devs struggle). Well, I am pretty happy how I am saving users from having to use Node.js: https://docs.xlwings.org/en/latest/pro/server/o…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#268

Post by benterix »

boppo1 wrote: post #132
benterix wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, if you are running recent versions of Windows (I don't remember when exactly this trend started, with 2000? XP?), you have basically no control over what data you send to them and when. You can try to block traffic but it will interfere with normal Windows operations. You can try to investigate and play cat and mouse game with Microsoft, but they will always be one step ahead of you - unless you…

What if I’m running windows in a VM in Ubuntu and only feeding it exactly the relevant stuff?

It makes little difference if it's a VM or bare metal - what matters is network connectivity. If it's on, you lose control over the data leaving your computer. In Linux, BSD and others, you can control it in a very precise way.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#269

Post by dsagal »

ikrenji wrote: post #226
dsagal wrote: post #211

Grist is a spreadsheet with Python support (I am a founder). Python does make some formulas far easier. Nice to see Excel has data science libraries included from the start, that's something we've had our eyes on for a while. On the other hand, Grist is open source and can be run locally.

does it make you nervous to basically have microsoft as your primary competition now? :)

It's a spreadsheet, Excel was always our primary competition! :) The more Excel follows us, the better for everyone. Python is a start, but they have a way to go. Imagine proper relational data, self-hosting for cloud Excel, open-source, access rules....

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#270

Post by skrause »

_untra_ wrote: post #149
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.

You can just ship a copy of Python with Excel, no need to ask anybody to maintain their own installation.
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