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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#361

Post by tzs »

mkl wrote: post #341
tzs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't include other random data. You select N rows, contiguous or discontiguous, and those are copied to N consecutive rows starting at the paste point.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#362

Post by smitty1e »

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…

Great user name.

I have a private github repo called NVBC, the "NecroVisualBasiCon", with all of my favorite VBA-isms.

When I code it, I indent all of the `End *` lines to column 80, to make the VBA look more like python.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#363

Post by kbelder »

infamia wrote: post #299

There is an interesting looking competitor in this space that is built with Python integration from the ground up. https://www.neptyne.com/ I haven't tried it yet, nor am I affiliated with Neptyne, but it looks intriguing.

Hmm, I would have gone with "Nyptune".

But it looks nice. Looks fun to work with.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#364

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

GabeIsko wrote: post #296
UweSchmidt wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

It all sounds a little too "Software services as a software service."

Python -> Excel sounds great.

Cloud Python -> Cloud Excel sounds too much like a privacy and security disaster waiting to happen.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#365

Post by ivirshup »

skrause wrote: post #270
_untra_ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anaconda distributions aren't exactly small. I'd also assume there's some sort of environment isolation, so you're getting multiple copies. Maybe one per workbook?

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#366

Post by bluedino »

zadjii wrote: post #334
bluedino wrote: post #242

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 How out of touch with the real world is the Excel team?

Customer verbatims are like, an incredibly valuable currency. It's all fine to say "I know the product in and out and I think this is important". But it's another thing entirely to say "I know this is important because _this customer right here asked for literally this_".

But how do they not realize that not everyone wants to have the cloud required for a feature in Excel?

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#369

Post by mkl »

tzs wrote: post #361
mkl wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't include other random data. You select N rows, contiguous or discontiguous, and those are copied to N consecutive rows starting at the paste point.

It includes things that aren't selected, which is other random data. If I select, copy, and paste, the only desirable outcome is that I get a copy of my selection.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

#370

Post by bsder »

inglor wrote: post #49
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…

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.

How about an actual API that lets you drive Excel from Python rather than the other way around?

With that API, it won't matter whether you want Python, Ruby, Lua, whatever, for your scripting language.

This is nice, but it welds a specific version of Python inside Excel and makes it a gigantic PITA to use your normal development tools on your Python code.

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