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> Not sure if Excel is the best environment for this That's part of what makes it wonderful! The impracticality of it, plus it helps to dispel some of the "ma

by unoti 6y ago

> Not sure if Excel is the best environment for this That's part of what makes it wonderful! The impracticality of it, plus it helps to dispel some of the "magic" around assembly. Looking at things like this help you understand that it's just math and transformations, which Excel is pretty great at. Other things similarly impractical/awesome: - Ray Tracer in Excel [1] - Matrix recommendation system in Excel [2] - Neural Networks in Excel [3] Personally I never understood matrix-based recommendation systems until I watched Jeremy Howard build one from scratch in Excel [4]. [1] https://github.com/s0lly/Raytracer-In-Excel https://github.com/s0lly/Raytracer-In-Excel [2] https://towardsdatascience.com/netflix-and-chill-building-a-recommendation-system-in-excel-c69b33c914f4 https://towardsdatascience.com/netflix-and-chill-building-a-... [3] https://towardsdatascience.com/interactive-neural-network-fun-in-excel-8bad2b3a5d9d https://towardsdatascience.com/interactive-neural-network-fu... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J99NV9Cr75I&t=1740s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J99NV9Cr75I&t=1740s

Someone 6y ago
Pac-Man in Excel: https://github.com/spences10/pacellman https://github.com/spences10/pacellman More Excel games at http://www1.plala.or.jp/chikada/index.htm http://www1.plala.or.jp/chikada/index.htm (in Japanese. Google translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.plala.or.jp%2Fchikada%2Findex.htm&sandbox=1 https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=h...) I think ‘real spreadsheet games’ shouldn’t use VBA, but I also think that rules out arcade games with decent UI (you can animate by using iterations, but I think user input would require the user to hit enter to register commands), so, maybe, one should allow some minimal VBA in a subcategory of spreadsheet games that don’t use the spreadsheet’s scripting language) Edit: I didn’t test it, but it seems using https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cell-function-51bd39a5-f338-4dbe-a33f-955d67c2b2cf https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cell-function-51b..., one could have a mouse-operated VBA-less Flappy-Bird that reacts to the user changing the width of a column, or use cut and undo to delete or reinsert rows or columns, thus providing user input. That’s workable for some value of workable.
dspillett 6y ago
> That's part of what makes it wonderful! Sometimes when we think we can, we do stop to consider if we should. And think "hell yes!".

by unoti 6y ago

Someone 6y ago

Pac-Man in Excel: https://github.com/spences10/pacellman https://github.com/spences10/pacellman More Excel games at http://www1.plala.or.jp/chikada/index.htm http://www1.plala.or.jp/chikada/index.htm (in Japanese. Google translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.plala.or.jp%2Fchikada%2Findex.htm&sandbox=1 https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=h...) I think ‘real spreadsheet games’ shouldn’t use VBA, but I also think that rules out arcade games with decent UI (you can animate by using iterations, but I think user input would require the user to hit enter to register commands), so, maybe, one should allow some minimal VBA in a subcategory of spreadsheet games that don’t use the spreadsheet’s scripting language) Edit: I didn’t test it, but it seems using https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cell-function-51bd39a5-f338-4dbe-a33f-955d67c2b2cf https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cell-function-51b..., one could have a mouse-operated VBA-less Flappy-Bird that reacts to the user changing the width of a column, or use cut and undo to delete or reinsert rows or columns, thus providing user input. That’s workable for some value of workable.

dspillett 6y ago

> That's part of what makes it wonderful! Sometimes when we think we can, we do stop to consider if we should. And think "hell yes!".