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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#291

Post by dogleash »

codethief wrote: post #202

> Python calculations run in the Microsoft Cloud A colleague was joking, "I guess even Microsoft itself isn't able to manage local Python installations on Windows…" But imagine if Microsoft actually managed to finally solve the "setup a local Python environment" situation once and for all and Excel became the standard Python package manager across operating systems! $ excelpip install fastapi==9.11.23 Searching for f…

> A colleague was joking, "I guess even Microsoft itself isn't able to manage local Python installations on Windows…"

I've been waiting for Microsoft to solve package management on Windows since I played around with debian's apt 20 years. That's not snark, it seemed like Microsoft's product complexity and dedication to backwards compatibility of software would make them the ones to move software management forward. Really dig into the problem space and reinvent the package manager beyond anything that's come out of the open source space.

Instead we've got windows update, windows features, microsoft store, software center and winget (you know, that Microsoft-built package manager for Windows you install from the other Microsoft-built package manager for Windows).

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#292

Post by globular-toast »

steno132 wrote: post #251

Many comments are criticizing the fact that this only runs in the cloud. And if Microsoft instead announced this would only run locally, they would instead be deploring the massive remote code execution vulnerabilities that this opens. For this feature, there's no question that providing it in the cloud is much, much better for security. Microsoft can now execute the Python code in Firecracker VMs which provide much…

My local PC can run code in Firecracker VMs.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#293

Post by vba »

dnadler wrote: post #282
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 on that! I use custom JavaScript functions to hit our internal analytics API. It was really nice to work with.

Thanks for your kind words. Did you ever use streaming function to update your analytics periodically or when new data become available?

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#294

Post by mthoms »

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…

Optimist: The glass is half full.

Pessimist: The glass is half empty.

Excel: The glass is January 2nd.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#295

Post by vba »

rvba wrote: post #261
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"

I don’t unfortunately. Given the more technical nature of the feature I’m inclined to agree Microsoft should make a bountiful supply of working examples.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#296

Post by GabeIsko »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #182
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.

The Cloud, and therefore the integration of as much as possible in it, is core Microsoft strategy. It's about the recurring payments, the lock-in, and ultimately literally having the knowledge and business processes of the world economy on their own computers. If this is true, the reason why it is important to run data and scripts locally should be clear, and so is the motivation of your PMs to actively combat any su…

Yeah, but they also make money on the office subscriptions. So you also want current working data scientists who would not touch excel to give it a chance because they can use their existing python back-end. Eventually, there would be a service that is Microsoft exclusive, but they have to compete on services.

Idk, it's really up to Microsoft's business units. Office could be the loss leader to get cloud business, but it could be the other way too. Either way, I would hazard that they want people to actually use this integration feature.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#297

Post by giaour »

WorldMaker wrote: post #287
giaour wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can build arbitrary-precision rationals" is a far cry from saying, "this is a language designed for precision arithmetic." You can technically build arbitrary-precision rationals without BigInts using arrays, but it's not exactly ergonomic. Even if we stipulate that users will be cognizant of floating point limitations and convert everything to integers, JS still requires all literals to be suffixed with n to av…

Many languages that are considered "precision" languages have some form of suffix to denote large/long/arbitrary-sized literals. (C# there's a big useful difference if a literal ends with `m` or `l`.) Most languages you have to be aware of your data types and use the appropriate data types. No one is saying that "JS is a language designed for precision arithmetic", everyone is saying "JS is a language with the tools…

> Many languages that are considered "precision" languages have some form of suffix to denote large/long/arbitrary-sized literals. (C# there's a big useful difference if a literal ends with `m` or `l`.)

The failure mode is significantly different when comparing JS to other mainstream languages. Most languages have a "checked" mode (either opt-in or mandatory) so that expressions like `4611686018427387904 + 4611686018427387904` can raise an error, whereas JS will just give you the wrong answer. Python is the most ergonomic for beginners or non-developers because the runtime will convert an integral type to an arbitrary precision integer on overflow.

Yes, there are alternative primitives that can be used, but you need to know they exist. We're talking about a tool that is explicitly designed for people who are not professional programmers, and JS's behavior here is surprising unless you understand the underlying data model. I would personally much rather give beginners a tool incorporating as few footguns as possible.

> JS is a language with the tools today to do precision arithmetic (whether you like it or not)

Arbitrary precision arithmetic has been possible in JS since the language was invented, but it has always been a pain. The bignum NPM package[0] predates the BigInt numeric primitive by 9 years. The addition of `BigInt` to ES2020 was important for performance (since implementing an arithmetic primitive in JS makes calculations dog slow), but it didn't add any fundamental affordances to the language.

[0]: https://github.com/justmoon/node-bignum

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#298

Post by iancmceachern »

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…

The new competition to this market have gained market share by making workbooks not stand alone, it's a whole growing product segment. So they either have to evolve or die.

It's not a red flag, it's evolution

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#300

Post by paulddraper »

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…

Appropriate username
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