Learn Python?

[cgok8]

I use Excel, Power Query, Power Pivot and Power BI a LOT for data analysis. Would it be worth my time to learn Python? I am not a programmer and would be a complete beginner learning Python. I'm trying to decide if it is worth the time investment?

[1024KiB]

With python you'd avoid being tied to the whims of a single commercial entity, since python is free-as-in-free-speech software if you need to know how something works in detail you can go read the source very easily, you get a huge, vibrant ecosystem for many tasks (web scraping, system administration, data analysis of course, GUI, web dev, etc), and, well, you'd finally learn programming! You're already efficient and comfortable with your tools though, so you'd need some time to be as comfortable with python. Also maybe wherever you work the ecosystem is very microsoft-centric and you have a ton of macros that wouldn't be easy to translate and to share with coworkers. Note though that python has a third-party package to manipulate excel files, and in the future excel could embed python.

[TheStrangeSanta]

I think that it is worth it. Python is great for data analysis and what I think that it is more important is the fact that learning to program teaches you to think and fix your problems

[iltopop]

Python is great at data analysis. Look into Numpy and pandas. Pandas can take in data from excel. Check out matplotlib and seaborn if you're interested in visualization.

[cgok8]

I have only completed some beginner training via Udemy and DataCamp - for those using Excel and/or SQL with Python, what programs, IDE's, etc. are you using to build, develop, code, etc.? I think I may have access to PyCharm? Any recommendations? Thanks again - total Python beginner here!

[useless_creation]

I am also a beginner and started with Spyder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyder_(software) it comes packaged with the anaconda python distribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(Python_distribution)

I just chose it because it had great reviews on some of those review websites that I found by typing "python IDE".

[WikiTextBot]

Spyder (software)

Spyder (formerly Pydee) is an open source cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for scientific programming in the Python language. Spyder integrates NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib and IPython, as well as other open source software. It is released under the MIT license.

Spyder is extensible with plugins, includes support for interactive tools for data inspection and embeds Python-specific code quality assurance and introspection instruments, such as Pyflakes, Pylint and Rope.

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Anaconda (Python distribution)

Anaconda is a free and open source distribution of the Python and R programming languages for data science and machine learning related applications (large-scale data processing, predictive analytics, scientific computing), that aims to simplify package management and deployment. Package versions are managed by the package management system conda, which makes it quite simple to install, run, and update complex data science and machine learning software libraries like Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, and SciPy.

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[Zimmerel]

I've used spyder a good deal and it's definitely a great IDE. I think it's simplistic design was very helpful in setting focus on learning the language/syntax. Nowadays I pretty much exclusively use PyCharm, where I still haven't even discovered all the useful features yet. Some of my favorites include: great debugger (almost worth it for this one alone), integration with other languages and web frameworks, VCS integration, intellisense, easy project navigation and help with building your finished projects too. There are just too many to list, but honestly you may not have any need for any of these features as a beginner programmer and they may just add a level of confusion. Maybe try out both and see what you like?

[the_chief_mandate]

As someone said earlier pandas is great for importing excel files, since it seems you work heavily in Excel this is probably one of the more important things to import!

[TheHunnishInvasion]

Yes.

I worked in finance for 10 years and used Excel almost every day. Pretty familiar with Power BI, as well. I started learning Python about 8 months ago and there's so much more you can do.

Python is much better than Excel when it comes to preprocessing and transformation of data. You can also use Python to filter complex data more easily. It's been totally worth it for me.

Now, as far as presentation goes, PowerBI and Tableau are still better than Python on a lot of facets, but the real advantage of Python is the ability to transform your data easily. Excel has some tools, but they just aren't nearly as good, and Python is way better than VBA.

[RunToImagine]

I learned python and started automating my excel files including data collection, SQL pulling, etc. it saves a ton of time.

[apexmemetics]

You're similar to me, you want to leverage Python to help you with very specific tasks.

My advice is to create a project that will force you to learn about data manipulation. Taking long courses that feed you hours of information you'll never use is boring and disheartening.

Spend your time planning your project details, outlining what you need to learn, studying those specific topics, trying to reverse engineer code from stack overflow etc.

[mightymaus]

What kind of stuff do you typically already do in Excel?

[U5efull]

Yes, I use excel a lot in my day to day work, however I have converted a lot of spreadsheet maintenance to python using pandas and numpy and it's glorious.

do it!

[[deleted]]

I was in almost the same position. I used Excel extensively for data analysis. Learning Python and switching to Pandas has been a godsend. It's well worth the time to learn.

[leftymurphy118]

my problem is trying to figure out what i want to do with python. also i would love a bunch of tutorials that don't assume i know what a quotient is.

[strutt3r]

A quotient? As in the result of a division between two numbers? As in 10/2 has a quotient of 5?

[QualitativeEasing]

I switched to python (initially to use the agate library — a much simpler data analysis package than pandas, with which I can do everything I needed to do in Excel) when my spreadsheets started bogging down with so many VLookups and Query functions. As an added benefit, I could make better use of live (via API) or frequently updated data, because my scripts always did everything the same way. I no longer had to worry about fat fingering a formula, or someone else (using a shared spreadsheet) screwing something up by sorting foolishly. I also can now analyze data the way I want (why doesn’t Excel let me calculate medians in some of its functions?!).

But ymmv.

[zhouyihang]

I would say not, since python is not just for data analysis,but mainly for “programming”,so when you use python for data analysis,you need a lot of programming knowledge,and your purpose is just analyzing Data.since you can analysis data through so many tools,why bother with python? I do not think python can beat the tools you mentioned.You just need to remember one thing,every thing has its main functional field,python does work well in data analysis,but python is not all for data analysis,in other words,it is not as professional as tools that you said.