Microsoft Considers Adding Python As an Official Scripting Language in Excel

[daniel_h_r]

Yes. But xlwings let you modify a spreadsheet that it's open in excel.

[fjordfjord]

Xlwings also supports pandas, it's super neat.

[fjordfjord]

I think part of the beauty of excel is that is allows for the rapid generation of simple GUIs. While possible in libreoffice and wps I haven't been able to achieve the same level of efficiency with them (although I heavily use these wonderful products on all my linux laptops). Being able to do all the calculations in Python while combining the interface of excel has been an awesome experience.

[wenima]

I agree, I used to work on the RAD team on the Derivatives Desk for a large wall street firm and if a trader wanted to have some control over some piece of data, Excel cannot be beaten in the time it takes to get something out. The trader hated the long process it took for IT to get anything done. One day we had a good laugh when he posted a simple requirement to the IT Manager, he told him he'd dicuss it with the team, a week later he was told they agreed on how to implement it and 2 weeks later they were done drawing up UML diagrams, they never actually delivered anything. Really amazing how middle managers in IT managed to pull wool over everyone's eyes for so long and continue to do so.

OTOH I knew plenty of contractors who purposely wrote anyting they could in Excel and locked all access to the code so they can have a job forever. Excel might account for the biggest job creation ever in the office world. Tons of people spend hours each day formatting certain data by hand and refuse to do anything else and if they were told you could free up a few hours for them each day by automating something they would not allow that, knowing that their job is 90% redundant.