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We have development desktop builds. A few product questions for you: Would you be ok with a new file format or do we need to save to .xlsx? How important is P

We have development desktop builds. A few product questions for you: Would you be ok with a new file format or do we need to save to .xlsx? How important is Python in a desktop version? Would you need integration with conda or virtualenv? How much do you think we should charge?

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
1. A new format would probably be okay, but make the icon for the application green so it looks like an excel file. It can open excel files right? 2. A lot of our sheets use VB/macros so a scripting language is pretty useful. Not sure about the other stuff. 3. No idea, around the price for an office 365 seat?
deleted 3y ago
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fragmede 3y ago
XLSX is an open format, why invent another? xkcd 927 python in the app needs to be wholly self contained so whatever the backend it uses, it's separate from anything else on the system. charge through the nose for desktop clients because of how much it costs in development and support time. people who want native clients so it's not up on a cloud somewhere for whatever reason can pay for that privilege.
- gamegoblin 3y ago
  I implemented an Excel format processor and the Excel format does not lend itself well to super-high-performance for large datasets unfortunately
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Good to know! I haven't thought about this as deeply as you have, so if you have justification for making your own new format, go for it!
emeril 3y ago
I live in excel in a multibillion dollar company as the "excel" guru... though my company doesn't really have big data generally speaking I would love a performant desktop excel replacement - I miss using excel 2003 - it has been downhill ever since... That said, I'm clearly not the target market for this product though I believe there's some degree of frustration with how poorly modern excel works with many files now which this product may address. I would guess that making this a light-weight and performant (not electron) desktop app (ideally portable so installing it wouldn't require admin access) with substantial feature parity and compatibility with excel would be a big deal - I'd install it right away...

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago

1. A new format would probably be okay, but make the icon for the application green so it looks like an excel file. It can open excel files right? 2. A lot of our sheets use VB/macros so a scripting language is pretty useful. Not sure about the other stuff. 3. No idea, around the price for an office 365 seat?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fragmede 3y ago

XLSX is an open format, why invent another? xkcd 927 python in the app needs to be wholly self contained so whatever the backend it uses, it's separate from anything else on the system. charge through the nose for desktop clients because of how much it costs in development and support time. people who want native clients so it's not up on a cloud somewhere for whatever reason can pay for that privilege.

gamegoblin 3y ago
I implemented an Excel format processor and the Excel format does not lend itself well to super-high-performance for large datasets unfortunately
- fragmede 3y ago
  Good to know! I haven't thought about this as deeply as you have, so if you have justification for making your own new format, go for it!

emeril 3y ago

I live in excel in a multibillion dollar company as the "excel" guru... though my company doesn't really have big data generally speaking I would love a performant desktop excel replacement - I miss using excel 2003 - it has been downhill ever since... That said, I'm clearly not the target market for this product though I believe there's some degree of frustration with how poorly modern excel works with many files now which this product may address. I would guess that making this a light-weight and performant (not electron) desktop app (ideally portable so installing it wouldn't require admin access) with substantial feature parity and compatibility with excel would be a big deal - I'd install it right away...