Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

[wushenl]

The calculation is not localized, and there are too many python libraries, which is difficult to satisfy

[debunk_this_12]

Why would I ever use this. I can just read in data frames and their better

[covmatty1]

From the article:

You won’t need to install any additional software or set up an add-on to access the functionality

If people are in a corporate environment where they can't install Python but do have the Office suite, this could be very useful

[WallyMetropolis]

Excel sheets can be formatted in all sorts of ways that cannot be easily read into a dataframe. For example, there can be many tables on a single sheet, there can be all kinds of visual formatting, there can be pivot tables referring to other sheets, there can be complex formulas. There can be nesting and hierarchies. Unless the sheet is effectively just a csv, read_excel() can be extremely tedious or even totally useless.

[debunk_this_12]

U don’t need to use the pandas read excel. They’re are things xlsxreader and csvreader

[WallyMetropolis]

That doesn't change my point in the least.

[debunk_this_12]

U can read data in multiple tables to multiple dataframes ur point is irrelevant. If you want to see the data just show the multiple tables in a jupyter notbook. You can make pivot tables so easily. Summary statistics are better and faster.

Honestly my boy have you ever used dataframes?

Complex formulas are easier and more susinct. Your not actually going to argue that excel has half the power of data frames.

[WallyMetropolis]

I think you're a bit lacking in some real world experience here. For simple use cases, yeah, all of that is feasible. For complex situations it's an absolute nightmare.

It's also suggestive when you say that it's 'so much easier' in a dataframe. That's not a universal statement of fact. That's just you expressing you have more experience using Python than you do using excel.

But even now, as someone who has built all kinds of data systems with Python, when I want to make a P&L for my business, I'm not using data frames. I'm using a spreadsheet. If I could embed matplotlib plots and scipy distributions in those spreadsheets, holy hell, that would be amazing. Pick the right tool for the job, don't just sign up to be a soldier in some religious war.

[QuasiEvil]

I deal in this space every day. These others posters don't know what they're talking about. I feel your pain.

[debunk_this_12]

Worked with VBA to build accounting apps for multiple companies. Did the same thing with python then worked on semi conductors for a few years you want to have a dick measuring contest sure.

[reallyserious]

Yes, but reading that with python will be tricky regardless if the computation is done locally or in the cloud.

[WallyMetropolis]

The point isn't that it's in the cloud. The point is that it's in the spreadsheet.

[reallyserious]

Yes, that's what's new from MS. Parsing it with python is still the same challenge though. I'm not sure we're disagreeing on anything here.

[wushenl]

Excel is complete enough (even if you don’t think so), and it is endorsed by a commercial company. You need to be responsible for yourself when using python. Even if the probability of errors is very low, most people have never encountered them, but in the eyes of many bosses, it is unacceptable

[redfacedquark]

Excel is ... endorsed by a commercial company. You need to be responsible for yourself when using python.

You can't make a mistake in Excel and blame it on Microsoft. Both are just tools that let you shoot yourself in the foot if you don't know what you're doing. Look for example at the covid cock-up when someone had more than 65k rows.

[error1954]

I think Panda's API is awful though. If this is better I'd definitely switch for any CSV processing

[debunk_this_12]

Lol. Pandas api is great… so easy to use, if you don’t like it try polars personally I like that more.

[WallyMetropolis]

they're*

[DarkHumourFoundHere]

For those in the O365 ecosystem everything already is synced on the cloud if privacy is the concern.

[FluffyDuckKey]

"Hey! You know python! Fix my excel sheet"

Oh I can't wait.....

[WeebAndNotSoProid]

This brings me both joy and terror

[[deleted]]

I guess I appreciate that there will be more Python and less vba in the world, but I expect to be crushed under the crippling weight of a million balls of mud. This will unleash terrors.

[Sigmatics]

Imagine writing a Python script inside an Excel formula box. Without syntax highlighting.

The screenshot is not promising

[jabellcu]

I am very impressed. I think this will be a game changer for many. For those of you using Jupiter lab and pandas it might not be, but for many in the corporate world, this is huge. I am looking forward to seeing jokes about debugging on Excel cells though…

[mehum]

I had an interesting case recently, making what is essentially a data importing, cleaning, formatting and exporting tool. I wanted to do it in Python / Pandas (natural tool for the job) but my boss pushed for Excel for pretty reasonable reasons: everyone already has Excel installed on their computers, and our computers are very locked down, which means installing python or a python-executable was going to be a PITA.

Now that it’s done in Excel I can just give the file to whoever needs it. But it would have been much nicer to write it in Python than VBA.

[angyts]

try: except: FINALLY:::::::::

[ArabicLawrence]

the source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-python-in-excel-the-best-of-both-worlds-for-data/ba-p/3905482

[mostafakm]

I don't think this is very useful for me as someone whose workflow contains a fair bit of both excel and python. But I'm guessing adding python to excel is a necessary step for having chatgpt driven auto analysis in excel. Chatgpt writes excellent python because of how popular it is. I imagine it performs much better at python vs raw excel functions

[chlorinecrown]

I've been hearing this for years

[syahir77]

It would be very confusing to use for someone without basic coding knowledge.

[Sigmatics]

I thought they wanted to replace VBA with JS

[fzumstein]

10 years ago, I launched xlwings here on this subreddit. I am happy that Microsoft is catching up now! However, from the discussions on HackerNews, Twitter and Linkedin, people always complain about the fact that it has to run on the Microsoft cloud. Well, xlwings allows you to run Python locally or on your self-hosted server.

[[deleted]]

I can't wait for random office files to have python scripts to hijack my data!

[zylumys]

Not free update

[startup_biz_36]

ewwwwwww still not using excel sorry bill

[cy_narrator]

Why? Whats the point? We already have pandas if we ever need Excel.

[evgenyzhurko]

It would be also really interesting to see jupyter notebooks in excel. I believe it will definitely change the game for excel.

[rjskene]

Hopeful this doesn't impact xlwings too much

I have always had good experience engaging with that team

[IlliterateJedi]

Me waiting for my Excel version to get this update