4 ms·

Python for Excel data manipulation would be great.

claudeganon 6y ago
Office suite automation with Python would be great across the board. The external python libraries that do this are pretty clunky and VB scripting is a hot mess.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  Office now allows you to script it using Typescript, so you don't have to use VB any more.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Oh that’s cool! Haven’t had to do anything with it in a few years, but excited to check out how this works.
  - jannes 6y ago
    I'm really curious what you are talking about? I could only find "Office Scripts", which doesn't work in the normal desktop apps (only the web version). Edit: I just found out about "Script Lab". Is that what you are talking about? https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA104380862 https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA10438...
- phonon 6y ago
  https://www.xlwings.org/ https://www.xlwings.org/ and https://www.pyxll.com/ https://www.pyxll.com/
binarycodedhex 6y ago
Agreed. VBA makes by fingers and eyes ooze gangrenous pus.
carabiner 6y ago
First-class integration in Excel would be a game changer. Holy shit. Though adding a multiline editor with indentation in Excel would be really nice as well. We've got to stop pretending Excel functions don't constitute a programming language.
- SmellTheGlove 6y ago
  Bring in versioning/snapshotting with some git integration while you're at it... The finance folks I work with are fucking wizards. I'm convinced many of them would have made great engineers given what they can accomplish building applications in what might be the world's worst IDE.
  - lcrmorin 6y ago
    Well... most quants are recruited straight out of engineering schools so you are probably right. About the IDE, honestly once you think about it, it actually achieve many thing at once. I am not sure what they could change to make it better.
    - SmellTheGlove 6y ago
      Some of the most impressive, most complex Excel apps I've seen were 1000% not built from quants out of engineering schools. That's the beauty of Excel - but _managing_ these apps is the nightmare of my specific profession :) I'd say two things would make it better: - Have a "code" version of the cell editor that has formatting/indentation + basic linting. [Sometimes 75% of the challenge is reading the code in linear fashion and figuring out what it does] - Integrate git-like versioning and some sharing features with Office365. Basically, make it so that you can roll-forward or roll-back on both the code and the contents, and make it so that you are _not_ emailing files around to share them.
jaimebuelta 6y ago
Interestingly enough, Libre Office (and OpenOffice before that) allow you to use Python internally for Macros through PyUNO, which is a pain to use given the lack of documentation, but amazingly powerful. It was one of my first usages of Python, and used that to create quite complex Spreadsheets
mcintyre1994 6y ago
It's been at the top of their public feedback request page for ages: https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10549005-python-as-an-excel-scripting-language https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-... They did officially respond in 2018 and put out a survey for thoughts, don't think they've followed up since but they definitely know demand is there.

Office suite automation with Python would be great across the board. The external python libraries that do this are pretty clunky and VB scripting is a hot mess.

tomjen3 6y ago
Office now allows you to script it using Typescript, so you don't have to use VB any more.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Oh that’s cool! Haven’t had to do anything with it in a few years, but excited to check out how this works.
- jannes 6y ago
  I'm really curious what you are talking about? I could only find "Office Scripts", which doesn't work in the normal desktop apps (only the web version). Edit: I just found out about "Script Lab". Is that what you are talking about? https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA104380862 https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA10438...
phonon 6y ago
https://www.xlwings.org/ https://www.xlwings.org/ and https://www.pyxll.com/ https://www.pyxll.com/

binarycodedhex 6y ago

Agreed. VBA makes by fingers and eyes ooze gangrenous pus.

carabiner 6y ago

First-class integration in Excel would be a game changer. Holy shit. Though adding a multiline editor with indentation in Excel would be really nice as well. We've got to stop pretending Excel functions don't constitute a programming language.

SmellTheGlove 6y ago
Bring in versioning/snapshotting with some git integration while you're at it... The finance folks I work with are fucking wizards. I'm convinced many of them would have made great engineers given what they can accomplish building applications in what might be the world's worst IDE.
- lcrmorin 6y ago
  Well... most quants are recruited straight out of engineering schools so you are probably right. About the IDE, honestly once you think about it, it actually achieve many thing at once. I am not sure what they could change to make it better.
  - SmellTheGlove 6y ago
    Some of the most impressive, most complex Excel apps I've seen were 1000% not built from quants out of engineering schools. That's the beauty of Excel - but _managing_ these apps is the nightmare of my specific profession :) I'd say two things would make it better: - Have a "code" version of the cell editor that has formatting/indentation + basic linting. [Sometimes 75% of the challenge is reading the code in linear fashion and figuring out what it does] - Integrate git-like versioning and some sharing features with Office365. Basically, make it so that you can roll-forward or roll-back on both the code and the contents, and make it so that you are _not_ emailing files around to share them.

jaimebuelta 6y ago

Interestingly enough, Libre Office (and OpenOffice before that) allow you to use Python internally for Macros through PyUNO, which is a pain to use given the lack of documentation, but amazingly powerful. It was one of my first usages of Python, and used that to create quite complex Spreadsheets

mcintyre1994 6y ago

It's been at the top of their public feedback request page for ages: https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10549005-python-as-an-excel-scripting-language https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-... They did officially respond in 2018 and put out a survey for thoughts, don't think they've followed up since but they definitely know demand is there.