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Create, train and run Scikit-learn and TensorFlow models in Excel

88 points by faja2000 5y ago

savant_penguin 5y ago
Finally machine learning with Excel I'd love to see some integration with cloud services for model deploy The workflow email>Excel>CodePipeline>AWS deploy looks really funny and possible
- bfung 5y ago
  You think that’s funny, but from experience, I’d tell you this happens more often than you think. A company I was with, that was a startup and then IPO’d, our pipeline involved an open office spreadsheet “deployed” (copy) onto the server, where then the Java webapp (war+tomcat) would read the inputs to calculate for millions of people, user classifier and what kind of robocall they should get in case of a utility event to prevent brownouts.
- axpy906 5y ago
  I would be curious what deployment would look like here… Would it be uploading the model back to the cloud to run inference for other users - like a marketplace?
digitcatphd 5y ago
This is really incredible and brings enormous democratization to AI/ML applications.
zhte415 5y ago
Now absolutely no one doesn't have an excuse not to add AI to their résumé. Right after MS Word, MS Powerpoint and MS Excel.
- Guest42 5y ago
  Perhaps Microsoft can add it to their certs list and start competing with the tier 1 grad schools. I remember a newly hired ex-consultant have a slide in her deck about using ML across sparse/inaccurate company data and how this would turn “data into information.” I think eventually they realized that it takes more than PowerPoints and repeating that phrase.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
alexcnwy 5y ago
Looks interesting. BTW you can hack together something similar with the excellent ExcelDNA C# library.
avnigo 5y ago
*using an Excel addon Great nonetheless, and not to take anything away from the project, but I guess what I was expecting from the title, however ambitious, was an Excel-native solution.
- im_down_w_otp 5y ago
  Blargh. Me too. I was really hoping this was a deep-dive into an incredible, if beautifully deranged, misuse of Excel.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    I've heard legends of people fitting shallow feedforward NNs with pure Excel formulas. I once interned for an economist who was using recursive Excel formulas for some kind of iterative optimization algorithm. I don't remember what it was, probably some iterative least squares thing. I also was a research assistant for an economist who fit linear regressions with hand-written routines in Matlab. For some reason they felt more comfortable using Matlab's QR decomposition instead of just using the built-in linear modeling tools in R or even Stata. Some people just want to use their favorite tool even if it makes no sense to do so.
    - 7thaccount 5y ago
      Doesn't Matlab fit equations like that easily in a built-in fashion? Why use hand written routines?
      - nerdponx 5y ago
        I had that thought as I was writing this post. I have no idea.
narush 5y ago
Super cool. This is the opposite angle from the approach we’re taking at Mito [1]. Instead of extending Excel to support more advanced functionality, we’re extending Python environments to support more basic spreadsheet functionality. So: basic Python users doing data science can use a point and click environment that they are more familiar with. Interesting difference in user base as a result of this opposite approach. I also don’t envy you building an Excel add-in… we tried that first and didn’t love it :-) [1] https://trymito.io/hn https://trymito.io/hn
kzrdude 5y ago
(Serious question) The video voiceover is a speech synthesis, right? Or is it a really consistent/plain talking person?
- faja2000 5y ago
  Yes, Google-cloud/text-to-speech en-US-Wavenet-J
punnerud 5y ago
Inspired by the excel examples from the (free) fast.ai course? https://github.com/fastai/courses/tree/master/deeplearning1/excel https://github.com/fastai/courses/tree/master/deeplearning1/...
jonbaer 5y ago
Just a question about these type of apps/plugins, when it says something like this: "Add-in capabilities When this add-in is used, it Can read and make changes to your document Can send data over the Internet" is that isolated to just the pane you are currently on with the plugin?
- faja2000 5y ago
  Yes, the data is only read from the active worksheet. And your data is not sent over the internet. The trained model is stored on a server, but your data stays on your machine.
streamofdigits 5y ago
The spreadsheet is a killer app that nobody has yet figured out how it fits in the new era. Godspeed with your venture but keep in mind that scikit-learn has been built by an open source community.
dayeye2006 5y ago
Curious what is the modern way to write such plugins for excel. A couple of years ago, I used VSTO. Is that still the standard?

88 points by faja2000 5y ago

Finally machine learning with Excel I'd love to see some integration with cloud services for model deploy The workflow email>Excel>CodePipeline>AWS deploy looks really funny and possible

bfung 5y ago
You think that’s funny, but from experience, I’d tell you this happens more often than you think. A company I was with, that was a startup and then IPO’d, our pipeline involved an open office spreadsheet “deployed” (copy) onto the server, where then the Java webapp (war+tomcat) would read the inputs to calculate for millions of people, user classifier and what kind of robocall they should get in case of a utility event to prevent brownouts.
axpy906 5y ago
I would be curious what deployment would look like here… Would it be uploading the model back to the cloud to run inference for other users - like a marketplace?

digitcatphd 5y ago

This is really incredible and brings enormous democratization to AI/ML applications.

zhte415 5y ago

Now absolutely no one doesn't have an excuse not to add AI to their résumé. Right after MS Word, MS Powerpoint and MS Excel.

Guest42 5y ago
Perhaps Microsoft can add it to their certs list and start competing with the tier 1 grad schools. I remember a newly hired ex-consultant have a slide in her deck about using ML across sparse/inaccurate company data and how this would turn “data into information.” I think eventually they realized that it takes more than PowerPoints and repeating that phrase.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

alexcnwy 5y ago

Looks interesting. BTW you can hack together something similar with the excellent ExcelDNA C# library.

avnigo 5y ago

*using an Excel addon Great nonetheless, and not to take anything away from the project, but I guess what I was expecting from the title, however ambitious, was an Excel-native solution.

im_down_w_otp 5y ago
Blargh. Me too. I was really hoping this was a deep-dive into an incredible, if beautifully deranged, misuse of Excel.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I've heard legends of people fitting shallow feedforward NNs with pure Excel formulas. I once interned for an economist who was using recursive Excel formulas for some kind of iterative optimization algorithm. I don't remember what it was, probably some iterative least squares thing. I also was a research assistant for an economist who fit linear regressions with hand-written routines in Matlab. For some reason they felt more comfortable using Matlab's QR decomposition instead of just using the built-in linear modeling tools in R or even Stata. Some people just want to use their favorite tool even if it makes no sense to do so.
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    Doesn't Matlab fit equations like that easily in a built-in fashion? Why use hand written routines?
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      I had that thought as I was writing this post. I have no idea.

narush 5y ago

Super cool. This is the opposite angle from the approach we’re taking at Mito [1]. Instead of extending Excel to support more advanced functionality, we’re extending Python environments to support more basic spreadsheet functionality. So: basic Python users doing data science can use a point and click environment that they are more familiar with. Interesting difference in user base as a result of this opposite approach. I also don’t envy you building an Excel add-in… we tried that first and didn’t love it :-) [1] https://trymito.io/hn https://trymito.io/hn

kzrdude 5y ago

(Serious question) The video voiceover is a speech synthesis, right? Or is it a really consistent/plain talking person?

faja2000 5y ago
Yes, Google-cloud/text-to-speech en-US-Wavenet-J

punnerud 5y ago

Inspired by the excel examples from the (free) fast.ai course? https://github.com/fastai/courses/tree/master/deeplearning1/excel https://github.com/fastai/courses/tree/master/deeplearning1/...

jonbaer 5y ago

Just a question about these type of apps/plugins, when it says something like this: "Add-in capabilities When this add-in is used, it Can read and make changes to your document Can send data over the Internet" is that isolated to just the pane you are currently on with the plugin?

faja2000 5y ago
Yes, the data is only read from the active worksheet. And your data is not sent over the internet. The trained model is stored on a server, but your data stays on your machine.

streamofdigits 5y ago

The spreadsheet is a killer app that nobody has yet figured out how it fits in the new era. Godspeed with your venture but keep in mind that scikit-learn has been built by an open source community.

dayeye2006 5y ago

Curious what is the modern way to write such plugins for excel. A couple of years ago, I used VSTO. Is that still the standard?