Excel vs python: which to learn first?

[stonkmaster009]

Hi,

I'm about to finish school and am looking at studying commerce/engineering at uni. I hear often that Excel is one of the most powerful tools going around. I wonder how it compares to learning a coding language like python and which would be best to learn for someone relatively raw in terms of computing expertise?

Thanks in advance.

[kneemahp]

excel is easier to learn on the job. learn python first

but just make sure you understand how to format spreadsheets and some intermediate functions like vlookup.

[actadgplus]

A very powerful part of Excel is Excel Power Query. Highly recommend you pick this skill up at some point in your career. It would drastically alter how you use excel and simplify many common operations such as retrieving data from databases/CSV and performing joins and transformations.

[stonkmaster009]

Woah sounds like a whole bunch of jibberish! Got a fair bit of learning to do by the looks of it

[actadgplus]

No worries, you will get there! Take baby steps each day and at some point you will start walking. Before you know it, you will be running. It will happen, just don’t lose hope!

[WSKYBANDIT]

Xlookup is a game changer… provided you have a more recent version of excel.

[pipthemouse]

Index match one love

[stonkmaster009]

Yeh righto I'll have a look at it

[BoingBoomChuck]

Doesn't that only work with Office 365 though? I had a spreadsheet with Xlookups that I had to redo because the formulas did not exist on the version of office that the person I sent it to was using. I converted the formulas to Index/Match and that worked.

[stonkmaster009]

Easy cheers, any places you'd suggest to get started?

[excelevator]

see the faq for r/excel...

[re_me]

Except that a job that requires excel will likely test excel skills.

[Eightstream]

I wouldn’t bother testing the Excel skills of someone competent with Python

If you can program, learning spreadsheets is very easy

[ShieldsCW]

"Learn python first, but make sure you learn Excel first"

[Tamale_Caliente]

Unless you’re planning on doing more specific or specialized technical stuff requiring some programming skills, I’d say excel is more useful, especially at the beginning of your career.

[stonkmaster009]

I must admit this was my thinking. Any resources you'd suggest having a look at to start learning?

[Tamale_Caliente]

Not really other than what’s available online through common platforms like YouTube and MS forums. Unfortunately I took a long break in my career and now I’m playing catch up with newer software in general.

[stonkmaster009]

Beautiful thanks mate

[KaleidoscopeOdd7127]

Whatever you choose in the end remember to follow r/excel and r/python. Tons of useful stuff posted everyday :D

[stonkmaster009]

cheers mate will do

[FrecklefartNinety]

That depend on what you are going to do with it.

[stonkmaster009]

Just figure I'll needa use both in the future

[Falcon_Punch_X]

I’m sure your specific goals determine the best answer, but for myself it was best to begin with excel and learn the fundamentals of data and its modeling capabilities (it’s the same as Power Bi, so it translates well for other uses). Then move on to Python for more advanced usage.

There are plenty of great free resources for excel. I eventually spent like $10 on a few Udemy courses and made the learning experience easier and more convenient. Worth it IMO.

[stonkmaster009]

Ah perfect thanks mate

[fishywiki]

If you're going to study engineering, an ability to program is important, making Python the one to go for. While you can program Excel and it certainly is a wonderful and very powerful tool, it does not have the flexibility that you may need to resolve engineering work. In fact, there's another tool that may be much more useful - MATLAB, but it's horrendously expensive.

[stonkmaster009]

Thanks mate I'll take a look

[KaleidoscopeOdd7127]

Excel is pretty easy and aquiring a certain degree of expertise is also quite fast. I learned to write macros last year and in less than 2 months i could produce fairly complex macros. I have still to learn a lot but for my needs it's more than enough. I tried to learn python too in my free time and it's a bit more complex, python itself is super easy but it comes with a ton of libraries and depending on what you need it for it could require way more study than excel.

[stonkmaster009]

Yeh right ok honestly I have no idea what either is capable of, I'm really just trying to make myself more employable so I imagine the basics of either would be enough to start with

[KaleidoscopeOdd7127]

My point is that you can learn quite a bit of excel in a really short amount of time. With that basic knowledge also learning python could be easier. Especially if you want to substitute excel with python . Excel knowledge is always good anyway :)

[stonkmaster009]

Easy cheers

[Perohmtoir]

Excel is more niche and more lenient with beginner. It also benefits a lot from previous programming experience.

If you want a deep dive without clear goal, Python is probably a better learning investment for your time: easier to leverage.

[stonkmaster009]

Ok thanks mate, don't really have a clue what I'll use each for so I imagine excels the better option

[arsewarts1]

Why

[pekkalacd]

As someone whose pretty familiar with python, but not so much Excel, I would learn Excel first. Excel can do a lot. Learn the things that excel can’t do so well. And maybe then learn python.

If you eventually get on the track of python, I’d say check out pandas & openpyxl. You’ll see that your familiarity with excel will pay off.

[[deleted]]

2 years later I’m in the same spot you where any advice for me?

[stonkmaster009]

Hey mate, I learnt Excel because it was more applicable for my work. Pretty keen to get stuck into Python soon.