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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#341

Post by mkl »

tzs wrote: post #71
nologic01 wrote: post #35

I wish Libreoffice would have smelled the coffee long time ago. In principle scripting using Python is possible but exceedingly cumbersome/ugly and there seems to be no roadmap to improve on this. The same warning applies to the linux desktop and all its apps more generally. Increasingly proprietary platforms will be rolling out advanced "AI" functionality extensions to classic apps that are cloud based, many of them…

I think in a lot of cases its not even the advanced stuff that keeps people on Excel and other proprietary things. It's the seemingly little things. My biggest beef with LibreOffice's spreadsheet (and with Apple's Numbers) is how they handle copy/paste of discontiguous selections. Consider this 5 row by 3 column set of data: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f Suppose you select the 1 2 3 row, the 7 8 9 row, and the a b c…

To me Excel's behaviour is way more problematic here. I carefully select the data I want, and it silently includes irrelevant data as well. I don't want the spacing preserved, but I really don't want other random data included.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#342

Post by bubblebobble »

This is so weird. I built a "python within excel" a few years back.

Abandoned now: https://alphawolfxl.com/

It allowed python functions to be run on cells and ranges, and also allowed ranges to be filled with sql queries on databases.

I had managed to get also a matlab runner working (via matlab/java connector) and was just getting the R connector finished.

Basically, I made a website showing it working and gave a few people the plugin, and their feedback was "nah, my company won't pay for it, you're wasting your time" - so I shelved the project.

I have no idea what my emotions are doing right now :)

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#345

Post by mkl »

xxs wrote: post #16
qntty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy if I could just represent integers with more than 15 digits without rounding (e.g. 64-bit primary keys)

64bit can hold 20 digits (decimal), 20 (sortof) 19 completely

64 bit integers can. Excel uses 64 bit floating point. Try the formula

  =1 = (1+1e-16)
and you'll get TRUE.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#346

Post by bubblebobble »

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…

This is so weird. I built a working "python within excel" a few years back. (it also did sql and matlab&r remotely)

Abandoned now: https://alphawolfxl.com/

I abandoned this when some people I asked to beta test it said "their company wouldn't pay for it" and gave me the impression I'd wasted my time....

....Not sure how to feel about this.....

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#348

Post by kbelder »

brokencode wrote: post #22
cardamomo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That caught my attention too! I'm curious why they would choose this model.

Probably because Excel runs in a web browser nowadays and they want to avoid creating a separate way of running Python locally for a locally installed copy of Excel. Maybe they will in the future, but it makes sense to start with the approach that will work in both web and local installs.

In my corporate experience, casual usage of excel is in the cloud. Any large, complicated, or db-connected spreadsheet is done on local installations.

The list of what snacks people are bringing to the potluck is in excel online (or google sheets).

The excel sheet that is pulling information from a database, mashing it up, displaying it in a dozen different pivots... that is going to be local.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#349

Post by debitcredit »

swyx wrote: post #229

worth checking out Quadratic for an open source approach to Python + Spreadsheets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456509 theres going to be multiple people tackling this problem but I see it as a worthy one, theres no reason we should be needing VBA in the future when we can run Python in browsers.

We're building Python (mainly python pandas) + Spreadsheets at op (https://opapp.io). Would love to know what you think. The code editor is more like a built in code notebook.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#350

Post by kosolam »

bubblebobble wrote: post #346
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…

This is so weird. I built a working "python within excel" a few years back. (it also did sql and matlab&r remotely) Abandoned now: https://alphawolfxl.com/ I abandoned this when some people I asked to beta test it said "their company wouldn't pay for it" and gave me the impression I'd wasted my time.... ....Not sure how to feel about this.....

Don’t feel too bad because if you would have created a product from it, today this product would be deprecated..
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