6 ms·

Building on this, when purist engineers trash Excel, I point out that Excel cell formulas are the only case of Functional Programming going truly mainstream.

by enjeyw 6y ago

ggrrhh_ta 6y ago
This is the talk that I first saw that builds on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw I found it interesting, fun and great. Still, I would stick to using Excel for the personal analysis of data and not as the language/tool on which software is developed: data & programming logic intermixed, the default way to index cells, the difference between normal cells and array cells, and tables, etc., the fact that some things are just not possible to do fully programmatically without creating your own VB functions and therefore asking recipients of what looks like data to accept running arbitrary code in their machines, etc.
- moftz 6y ago
  I use Excel in my data processing workflow. I'll grab a small subset of the data to play around with in excel to see what it is I actually need out of it. Then, I'll do all of the real processing in python along with matplotlib for any charts I need to produce. Excel could almost entirely handle my use cases but there is usually some bit manipulation I need to do because my data is usually telemetry encoded as ASCII. Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. I could also just use MATLAB but I'm more used to using python.
  - slaymaker1907 6y ago
    Excel is exceptionally good at telling you what the shape of your data is. I love being able to just turn something into a table and then see the distinct values as a filter. Sure, SQL and most environments can tell you distinct values of a column and their counts, but they are much slower and more cumbersome to explore with. I often start out with broad filters then go through many more specific ones depending on what I see from the first filter.
    - LaszloKv 6y ago
      Another great tool for data exploration is visidata! This is a good example of what it can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU
      - sam_bristow 6y ago
        Visidata is great. My main problem is that I use it so infrequently so it's hard to build up the muscle memory to use it really effectively.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      Isn't all excel data tabular in shape?
  - DavidPeiffer 6y ago
    >Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. About a year ago Excel added =SWITCH, which is effectively {Logic Test | Output} pairings executed until one is true. Many if/then/else nestings could be eliminated with it.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    It looks to me datasette (https://datasette.io/ https://datasette.io/) could fill the same need: load the data into SQLite and explore it with a host of tools and visualisations, all profiting from the power of SQL
yowlingcat 6y ago
I thought I was the only one who did this kind of ribbing!
Pxtl 6y ago
If the functional programming language requires that each expression must be exactly one line with no comments, I'll pass thanks. Long Excel formulas make Regex look like poetry.
- xiaq 6y ago
  If you have a long expression, you can break it into multiple ones by storing some intermediate results in another cell. You can also hide such cells or put them in another sheet. This might sound like a hack, but being able to see intermediate results makes debugging complex expressions easier too, so in a sense it is working as intended.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    3D Excel would be intriguing. A dimension on which to store intermediate calculations.
    - phonon 6y ago
      Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv
    - davchana 6y ago
      I would love just getting the ability to resize the Evaluate Formula dialogue box text area.
  - DavidPeiffer 6y ago
    Formula -> Trace Dependencies/Precedents is also super handy! I have a short VBA loop that applies it to all selected cells. It makes it very easy to visually spot one cell reference that's wrong, because 20 cells connect to corresponding cells with parallel lines, then one isn't parallel. Ctrl+Tilda toggles show/hide formulas, which helps identify input cells when you inherit a messy spreadsheet.
- rtsil 6y ago
  The most painful thing for me, but not to ordinary users, is that the formulas are localized in the user's language.
perl4ever 6y ago
Look up Power Query, which has been part of Excel for a while.
- andylynch 6y ago
  Yea, power query is fantastic! Only caveat is you can’t (yet) use the editor on Mac, though it’s coming.
bontaq 6y ago
Simon Peyton Jones, one of the creators of Haskell, has been on that point for awhile too (https://www.slideshare.net/kfrdbs/peyton-jones https://www.slideshare.net/kfrdbs/peyton-jones). I think it's his main area of research working at Microsoft actually.

Building on this, when purist engineers trash Excel, I point out that Excel cell formulas are the only case of Functional Programming going truly mainstream.

by enjeyw 6y ago

Building on this, when purist engineers trash Excel, I point out that Excel cell formulas are the only case of Functional Programming going truly mainstream.

ggrrhh_ta 6y ago

This is the talk that I first saw that builds on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw I found it interesting, fun and great. Still, I would stick to using Excel for the personal analysis of data and not as the language/tool on which software is developed: data & programming logic intermixed, the default way to index cells, the difference between normal cells and array cells, and tables, etc., the fact that some things are just not possible to do fully programmatically without creating your own VB functions and therefore asking recipients of what looks like data to accept running arbitrary code in their machines, etc.

moftz 6y ago
I use Excel in my data processing workflow. I'll grab a small subset of the data to play around with in excel to see what it is I actually need out of it. Then, I'll do all of the real processing in python along with matplotlib for any charts I need to produce. Excel could almost entirely handle my use cases but there is usually some bit manipulation I need to do because my data is usually telemetry encoded as ASCII. Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. I could also just use MATLAB but I'm more used to using python.
- slaymaker1907 6y ago
  Excel is exceptionally good at telling you what the shape of your data is. I love being able to just turn something into a table and then see the distinct values as a filter. Sure, SQL and most environments can tell you distinct values of a column and their counts, but they are much slower and more cumbersome to explore with. I often start out with broad filters then go through many more specific ones depending on what I see from the first filter.
  - LaszloKv 6y ago
    Another great tool for data exploration is visidata! This is a good example of what it can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU
    - sam_bristow 6y ago
      Visidata is great. My main problem is that I use it so infrequently so it's hard to build up the muscle memory to use it really effectively.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Isn't all excel data tabular in shape?
- DavidPeiffer 6y ago
  >Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. About a year ago Excel added =SWITCH, which is effectively {Logic Test | Output} pairings executed until one is true. Many if/then/else nestings could be eliminated with it.
- rakoo 6y ago
  It looks to me datasette (https://datasette.io/ https://datasette.io/) could fill the same need: load the data into SQLite and explore it with a host of tools and visualisations, all profiting from the power of SQL

yowlingcat 6y ago

I thought I was the only one who did this kind of ribbing!

Pxtl 6y ago

If the functional programming language requires that each expression must be exactly one line with no comments, I'll pass thanks. Long Excel formulas make Regex look like poetry.

xiaq 6y ago
If you have a long expression, you can break it into multiple ones by storing some intermediate results in another cell. You can also hide such cells or put them in another sheet. This might sound like a hack, but being able to see intermediate results makes debugging complex expressions easier too, so in a sense it is working as intended.
- darkerside 6y ago
  3D Excel would be intriguing. A dimension on which to store intermediate calculations.
  - phonon 6y ago
    Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv
  - davchana 6y ago
    I would love just getting the ability to resize the Evaluate Formula dialogue box text area.
- DavidPeiffer 6y ago
  Formula -> Trace Dependencies/Precedents is also super handy! I have a short VBA loop that applies it to all selected cells. It makes it very easy to visually spot one cell reference that's wrong, because 20 cells connect to corresponding cells with parallel lines, then one isn't parallel. Ctrl+Tilda toggles show/hide formulas, which helps identify input cells when you inherit a messy spreadsheet.
rtsil 6y ago
The most painful thing for me, but not to ordinary users, is that the formulas are localized in the user's language.

perl4ever 6y ago

Look up Power Query, which has been part of Excel for a while.

andylynch 6y ago
Yea, power query is fantastic! Only caveat is you can’t (yet) use the editor on Mac, though it’s coming.

bontaq 6y ago

Simon Peyton Jones, one of the creators of Haskell, has been on that point for awhile too (https://www.slideshare.net/kfrdbs/peyton-jones https://www.slideshare.net/kfrdbs/peyton-jones). I think it's his main area of research working at Microsoft actually.