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Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

microsoft.com

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Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#51

Post by oooooooooooow »

the_other_b wrote: post #47
airstrike wrote: post #45

> The existing Name Manager in Excel allows any formula to be given a name. If we name our function PYTHAGORAS, then a formula such as PYTHAGORAS(3,4) evaluates to 5. Once named, you call the function by name, eliminating the need to repeat entire formulas when you want to use them. That's the biggest issue with LET / LAMBDA at the moment. Users are terrified of the name manager and simply do not understand what they…

I have a BS in Computer Science and whenever I help people pick up programming I notice scope is always one of the toughest concepts for them to grasp. It could of course be a reflection of my teaching ability, but it always seems to be a tough one.

Strange! Sadly I don't remember the experience of learning about scope myself (I was too young), now I find it hard to see the "mind state" that makes it hard to understand.

Isn't it a feature of natural languages to have the same word assume different meanings depending on where it's used? The concept translates nicely, and in PLs it's completely explicit whenever this happens.

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#52

Post by repsilat »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #33
perl4ever wrote: post #27

I don't understand the point of this function, when Excel already has Power Query. It doesn't seem like anyone who is literate in functional programming would want to use this, and anyone who isn't up to it wouldn't either. One of the most annoying things about Excel is it has so many parts apparently designed by people or groups that didn't talk to each other and didn't have a grasp of all the rest of it, let alone…

You definitely don't want to write anything complicated with it, but I think it is a nice intermediate that is more secure than macros and also is closer to writing Excel formulas than implementing custom macros. One thing that would greatly improve the experience would be to allow for formulas to contain just a lambda and then reference that lambda from another cell as a cell reference. Currently you have to use man…

> allow for formulas to contain just a lambda and then reference that lambda from another cell as a cell reference

My pet project from a couple of years ago[1] had cells-as-functions. I think it works really well. I also think names are important, but yeah they should either be easy or optional. Glad the Excel folks liked my rad idea though, even if they didn't quite hit all the high notes :-).

1: https://6gu.nz/, IMO worth watching the first minute of the video to see it in action

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#53

Post by ravi-delia »

perl4ever wrote: post #27

I don't understand the point of this function, when Excel already has Power Query. It doesn't seem like anyone who is literate in functional programming would want to use this, and anyone who isn't up to it wouldn't either. One of the most annoying things about Excel is it has so many parts apparently designed by people or groups that didn't talk to each other and didn't have a grasp of all the rest of it, let alone…

I just clicked on the XKCD link and chuckled a bit. Then I thought "Hey, I wonder if there's a new XKCD".

https://xkcd.com/2453/ Wouldn't you know it?

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#54

Post by Dangeranger »

willhslade wrote: post #50
gkop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The physical world is by definition finite This isn't obvious to me, would you elaborate?

Take everything in the world. Every physical piece. Break it into the smallest slice you care to: (atoms, quarks, whatever). The count of those things is bounded. It's a huge number, but it's finite. Infinity is not a real concept, it's imaging that there is no number that can be bounded.

Maybe, there are hypothesis’ that the Universe is infinite. The observable Universe is finite.

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#56

Post by srfvtgb »

oneplane wrote: post #49

Funny how the top of the article starts with "custom functions without code" and then immediately shows code. I get that calling code by its name can make it sound scary, but this whole notion of it being 'easy because it is not code' seems to be a big fat lie for comfort. Same goes for the magic no-code systems where code is replaced with 'expressions' or graphical 'workflows' which essentially is exactly the same t…

I guess they mean without writing VBA code.

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#57

Post by jaza »

gkop wrote: post #42
jaza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the amount of raw material on the planet needed for manufacturing more disks is finite. The amount of raw material in the universe is finite at a given point in time (it could be infinite over time, we don't know if time is infinite either). I think we've already established (especially over the past year) that fiat money is infinite. The Turing machine is a mathematical model. Infinity only exists in the world o…

> The physical world is by definition finite This isn't obvious to me, would you elaborate?

Is the universe finite?

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20200123104919A...

Sadly that thread will soon be gone due to the approaching Yahoo Answers apocalypse. Hopefully Internet Archive will save it!

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#58

Post by hattmall »

perl4ever wrote: post #27

I don't understand the point of this function, when Excel already has Power Query. It doesn't seem like anyone who is literate in functional programming would want to use this, and anyone who isn't up to it wouldn't either. One of the most annoying things about Excel is it has so many parts apparently designed by people or groups that didn't talk to each other and didn't have a grasp of all the rest of it, let alone…

The truth is you can basically already do this in excel without involving any more complicated things like VBA etc, purely in spreadsheet. You just need a lot more cells and longer formulas to set it up. Lots of Vlookups. This will provide the people that are already doing this stuff some much appreciated shortcuts.

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#59

Post by mathattack »

perl4ever wrote: post #27

I don't understand the point of this function, when Excel already has Power Query. It doesn't seem like anyone who is literate in functional programming would want to use this, and anyone who isn't up to it wouldn't either. One of the most annoying things about Excel is it has so many parts apparently designed by people or groups that didn't talk to each other and didn't have a grasp of all the rest of it, let alone…

Nobody at MSFT talks to their counterparts. I cringe every I have to copy and paste between Teams, Outlook and OneNote. There have to be internal customers there with the same problems.

Re: Lambda: The Ultimate Excel Worksheet Function

#60

Post by phonon »

perl4ever wrote: post #39
easton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power Query is only a thing in Excel for Windows though, it’s likely it will eventually be replaced with something cross platform. And if you don’t want to make .NET load every time you open your workbook, you have this.

That doesn't sound like a reason to me. What in the fundamental nature of Power Query prevents it from being cross platform? Or, conversely, what prevents something new that is cross platform from working basically the same as Power Query if it must be strictly incompatible? It's possible we're not talking about the same thing. Microsoft has slapped "Power" on so many different things. When I google "Power Query" I g…

They're open sourcing a related effort.

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-micro...

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