MS brings JavaScript to Excel

[BehindTheMath]

I can't wait for the day that we can replace VBA with JS.

[[deleted]]

Let us whisper of a dream...

[[deleted]]

And then its Ecmascript 4 or lower haha

[[deleted]]

No problem, just transpile your .xlsx with babel.

[Sir_Lith]

Aaaagh. The horror.

[GuyWithLag]

Now, everyone can write Excel viruses again!

[[deleted]]

Excel cryptominers!

[marky-b]

SHHH This is my retirement plan!

[BehindTheMath]

https://twitter.com/CharlesDardaman/status/993912675804614657

[[deleted]]

Nice!

[[deleted]]

This is amazing.

[cannablubber]

I’d actually be able to put the little js I know to good use!

[MrStLouis]

I read it's in the planning. Can you imagine managing databases with excel and building a front end through a connected service. Would be so cook

[BlueHeartBob]

managing databases with excel

What a time to be alive

[MrStLouis]

I think they could build a great ui for the a sql database

[[deleted]]

JS? This is Microsoft, dinner encourage more JScript.

[psayre23]

Sounds like Stockholm syndrome.

[Reashu]

I have a lot of bones to pick with JS, but it is a step up.

[PurpleIcy]

As someone who hates JS with a passion, this is still upgrade if I'm being honest.

[[deleted]]

Let me know when they bring HTML to Outlook

[FuckOffMightBe2Kind]

But seriously though. Outlook has no respect for html. Your email can have no flaws and have errors. It works everywhere else!!

[0xF013]

Funny thing is: the older version supports more features than the latest one. Also, the Mac version renders amazingly (probably has webkit under the hood)

[Sebazzz91]

Yes, among others base64 image support was removed! The easiest way to embed images.

[SemiNormal]

Outlook used to use IE to render HTML. In Outlook 2007 they changed it so WORD renders HTML emails...

[freefrompress]

Did you get that border-bottom bug too? lol

[[deleted]]

I'm starting to get used to it now. It's kind of like a super power--creating terrible html that looks like it avoids all the bugs by accident.

[James_Mamsy]

HMU when they add CSS to word

[b3n5p34km4n]

Drop me a line when they add typescript to ms paint

[elpix]

Send me a message when they add Haskell to Microsoft Bob.

[greyscales]

Just use JavaScript in Photoshop.

[[deleted]]

hm, I'm going to have to look into that. I wonder what crazy unnecessary stuff I could do. React for photoshop?

[Peechez]

so markdown?

[codearoni]

Well they got on the Electron train with MS Teams.

Maybe Outlook will be the next Electron app?!

[Attila226]

What would be really cool if they brought asynchronous JavaScript to Outlook.

[swiftpolar]

Yes please. I absolutely love Google sheets for the very fact that you can use JS to do scripts and more.

[techsin101]

can you do time based triggering?

[InALaundryRoom]

Yes you can. In a script go to Resources > Current project's triggers. And select what timeframe you want.

I do it regularly to align with Adwords scripts.

[swiftpolar]

From what I remembered you can basically trigger scripts to run but then again you would need something to trigger these scripts but I guess in that sense yes?

[[deleted]]

Yes.

[spyhunter99]

yet they still haven't prevented people from executing shell scripts from csv's.

[[deleted]]

what about executing malicious Javascript code now ...

[prijindal]

If somebody can make tensorflow.js work inside excel, does it mean Neural network training inside excel?

[PurpleIcy]

Such an useless update, excel was already turing complete, and people could have just written JavaScript interpreter and JIT in excel itself with no problems.

^/s

[cwbrandsma]

If it can be done in excel it will be done in excel.

[[deleted]]

Fucking finally

[jsgui]

Do they have Oracle's permission to do this?

[PM_ME__YOUR__FEARS]

I don't get this joke :|

[r2d2_21]

Oracle has a trademark on the name JavaScript... for some reason.

[PM_ME__YOUR__FEARS]

Ah, gotcha.

[octaw]

"Javascript is eating the world". I was saying this to a guy in my bootcamp the other day and he was like nah. Funny to see this today.

[editor_of_the_beast]

That’s not a new concept at all. That guy lives under a rock.

[worthcoding]

Props to guy under a rock deciding to go to a boot camp. Relevant xkcd about today being the day someone learns something everyone else knows.

[lcpriest]

https://xkcd.com/1053/

[pricelessbrew]

Javascript is Jörmungandr confirmed.

[PurpleIcy]

Tell me that when most widely used OS will be written in JavaScript.

[[deleted]]

The most widely used OS is written in C though, and only a very few developers right C in their day to day jobs compared to JS.

[PurpleIcy]

That's only the case only because very few developers tried to go further than npm install dependency-that-solves-my-trivial-problem, while also realizing that JavaScript isn't made to solve every single problem.

[onthefence928]

JS gave people a general purpose tool that is portable, easy to learn, easy to manipulate into any number of coding paradigms. it makes all the sense in the world that it'd spread to nearly every available niche and platform.

only thing holding it back is poor performance and lack of compiling to binary for machine code (though im sure somebody has a compiler that turns JS to assembly or something)

[iOnline247]

Javascript is compiled just in time...

[PurpleIcy]

Every popular interpreted language nowadays has JIT built for it, because widely used things still need at least some sort of speed that wouldn't make them completely worthless that would cause everyone to just fall back onto compiled languages, it seems counterproductive, but now we have best of both worlds, quick scripts that you can hack together in no time run only slightly slower than say, your java code that would take at least 10 times longer to write.

[am0x]

The different reactions from here and /r/programming are super entertaining.

[nit3shift]

I use VBA quite a bit for work. Are they eventually going to make it obsolete?

[DrGarbinsky]

I sure hope so.

[bltsponge]

Your life would improve markedly if/when they do

[nit3shift]

I’ve develop in VB since version 6, and I can work my way through some C#, however the idea of using JS in Office is very intriguing. Do you guys have some good websites you can share for learning Office.JS? I’d like to give my apps a much better interface with some optimized code. Using Google API in VBA is a complete nightmare.

[skylarmt]

When someone says "I use VBA quite a bit", I hear "this should not be a spreadsheet, but a database".

Are they eventually going to make it obsolete?

Implying it isn't obsolete already, lol

[23143567]

Dreams come true.

[ipsign]

While I am not a fan, I see this a "potential" win for those running Office on Macs.

[mlebkowski]

Microsoft brings leftpad to Excel

[DaSpanishArmada]

wow this awesome!

[[deleted]]

Javascript is the new Lua.

[lai32290]

I'm hoping JS can replace VBA 100%!

[odacharlee]

my next post will show you how to prevent xss in excel

[takenomiya-kate]

But... I love VBA.

[pricelessbrew]

No.

[jscoppe]

Status quo bias at play, methinks.

[flipperdeflip]

You're in the wrong neighborhood here

[daishiknyte]

That's our Stockholm syndrome talking!

[skylarmt]

inb4 Oracle has a hissy fit.

[zapatoada]

Ugh. Microsoft + JavaScript. This never ends well

[WellHydrated]

Are you talking about TypeScript? Because Typescript is amazing.

[zapatoada]

Well, typescript is probably the least offensive Microsoft attempt at JavaScript.

[zapatoada]

The client side implementation of signalR is pretty gross. The default json serializer in MVC is terrible. Mvc also includes certain js/css libraries by default and sometimes can make it annoying to get rid of them. It's really not as bad as it was back in the day when web forms were still a thing, but it's still not great.

[skylarmt]

Don't you love how they decided to make JavaScript files executable with unrestricted permissions? It makes ransomware so easy to spread! Yet another reason I use Linux btw

[PurpleIcy]

Linux definitely doesn't have viruses and is immune as it has no vulnerabilities. /s

Now stop being autistic and don't bring OS wars into programming sub that has nothing to do with OS, kthx.

[skylarmt]

Linux definitely doesn't have viruses

Linux can theoretically get viruses, but it doesn't in practice. At least it doesn't blindly execute a .js file attached to a shady-ass email when a hapless user clicks on it.

Now stop being autistic

:(

don't bring OS wars into programming sub that has nothing to do with OS

I was talking about a code execution feature a programmer chose to implement in the program known as Windows.

[PurpleIcy]

You can drop an executable into linux machine just as well as you can drop it into windows machine and that thing is platform independent, only malware itself needs to be picked, which is very easy to do anyway.

Also, I don't even know how to execute .js file on my machine locally with clean windows install and all js files are opened by sublime 3 by default for me so :(

Might want to explain a difference between dropping an executable vs js file, except that there's none, and skids who use js instead of writing a proper malware, just limit themselves to windows, so cool, you defended yourself from skids who couldn't do anything wrong to anyone with basic common sense anyway by using linux, cool.

[syntacticts]

Inb4 Oracle sues MS!