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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel (www.theverge.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/python@programming.dev
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[–] 39 points 3 years ago (4 children)

I was very excited until I read this line

Python calculations run in the Microsoft Cloud, with the results returned into an Excel worksheet.

That’s an instant non starter for me.

Not to mention this integration seems very much focused around the graphing libraries of python and not using it for data processing. It’s not the ‘excel powered by python’ I dreamed of.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I think it's just the first step since VBA is in a dire need of a replacement.

    Around the time Office 365 rolled out and replaced Office 2023 at my old job we've had a crapload of old VBA tools just refuse to work. Those tools were in use for 10-15 years sometimes with barely any maintenance required.

    Then with O365 some calls to certain 3rd party libraries resulted in Excel crashing without any single error message, stack, nothing. At that time everyone understood they need to get off that ship ASAP, corporate policies got super strict on end user created stuff. PowerBI and Power Automate are not there to replace it and I think MS feels threatened.

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    • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    LibreOffice already has Python support along with some other choices.

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    • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Python calculations run in the Microsoft Cloud, with the results returned into an Excel worksheet.

    Weird choice, so it has to be due to wanting to Paywall it (they mention that at the bottom of the article). Otherwise I'd rather have the option to install python locally and speed up my queries when working on large data sets

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    They probably also don’t want to deal with all the security vulnerabilities that came with VBA macros again.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    But who wants to deal with excel then. Running python in the cloud and have it put data into an excel file is something I can already do, and as a bonus I can do it locally too.

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    • [–] [B] 3 points 3 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    A public preview of the feature is available today, allowing Excel users to manipulate and analyze data from Python.

    “You can manipulate and explore data in Excel using Python plots and libraries, and then use Excel’s formulas, charts and PivotTables to further refine your insights,” explains Stefan Kinnestrand, general manager of modern work at Microsoft.

    Microsoft is also adding a new PY function that allows Python data to be exposed within the grid of an Excel spreadsheet.

    Python calculations run in Microsoft’s Cloud, with the results returned into an Excel worksheet.

    Excel users will be able to create formulas, PivotTables, and charts all based on Python data, with the ability to bring in charting libraries like Matplotlib and Seaborn for visualizations like heatmaps, violin plots, and swarm plots.

    Python in Excel is rolling out today as a public preview for Microsoft 365 Insiders in the Beta Channel.

    The original article contains 342 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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    [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    Cool. I'll be an Excel guru after all.

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    [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    As much as I hate Microsoft, I have to say this looks like a smart move for them

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    [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Might be interesting if they can develop a sandboxed version of python strictly for statistics.

    @NeverBetter

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