3 ms·

Not really understanding why one would want this?

mirceal 11y ago
many business "workflows" still run on excel. there might be some uses for non-technical users, but yeah... it's sort of madness to do this for a production service.
untog 11y ago
Because a lot (a lot) of companies have a staggering array of business logic sewn into spreadsheets. Eventually that might end up having performance issues, so transforming some of that logic to C is, at the very least, an interesting solution to a problem. Everyone looks down on them, but spreadsheets really are incredibly functional, and a lot more accessible that most programming languages.
- arthurcolle 11y ago
  Right, I get that... but why C? Presumably if you're using Excel you have access to the whole MSFT stack, so it just seems weird to use a Unix language when it seems likely that some VS/C# tool has already been built for this. I know C/C++ works just fine on Windows, but the command-line tools on cmd.exe leave a lot to be desired.
  - m_mueller 11y ago
    I think this might be geared at companies who want to convert Excel workflows to a POSIX based cloud solution. If you want to combine moving to the cloud (e.g. for multi-user) with reducing vendor lock-in, this makes some sense I think.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    C is "a unix language"? wtf?
  - teraflop 11y ago
    One advantage that C has over most other languages is that it has a very simple and widely-supported ABI that can be embedded into virtually anything else under the sun, without additional dependencies. That's especially valuable in this case because the kinds of organizations that have lots of business logic in Excel spreadsheets are unlikely to want to switch programming languages to take advantage of a tool like this. Given that automatically-generated code is likely to be ugly no matter what language it's written in, it makes sense to target the lowest common denominator that everyone can benefit from.
  - kcbanner 11y ago
    What makes C a Unix language?
    - cdcarter 11y ago
      Well, C was designed for the purpose of writing Unix.
    - Intermernet 11y ago
      Lots of answers to this one, including "It's not really", but the most commonly cited connection would probably be Dennis Ritchie. He was half of the original Unix team, and most of the original C team. There are also cross-overs in terms of "design ethos". (complex structures should be comprised of well-composed combinations of simple structures)
- _delirium 11y ago
  It's used in parts of engineering too. Matlab is more typical for complex models, but a reasonable number of models end up being implemented in Excel.
- cm2187 11y ago
  And let's be honest. If you ask an internal IT department to do in code the equivalent of what you do with a spreadsheet in a day, they will prioritize it, discuss specs for months, go away for another 6 months, come back with something that has nothing to do with what we are trying to achieve, then go away again. By the time it is up and running you probably don't need that stuff anymore. And of course you will never be able to update it. And if it stops working, IT will hide behind their ticket systems, which they seem to spend more time tweaking and upgrading than the applications they are supposed to care for. Ahhh. Corporate IT. I may miss it one day. But not today.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
727374 11y ago
Also, in addition to the other responses, excel is great for quickly modeling problems/systems with lots of inputs and outputs and calculations in between e.g. discounted cash flow.

many business "workflows" still run on excel. there might be some uses for non-technical users, but yeah... it's sort of madness to do this for a production service.

untog 11y ago

Because a lot (a lot) of companies have a staggering array of business logic sewn into spreadsheets. Eventually that might end up having performance issues, so transforming some of that logic to C is, at the very least, an interesting solution to a problem. Everyone looks down on them, but spreadsheets really are incredibly functional, and a lot more accessible that most programming languages.

arthurcolle 11y ago
Right, I get that... but why C? Presumably if you're using Excel you have access to the whole MSFT stack, so it just seems weird to use a Unix language when it seems likely that some VS/C# tool has already been built for this. I know C/C++ works just fine on Windows, but the command-line tools on cmd.exe leave a lot to be desired.
- m_mueller 11y ago
  I think this might be geared at companies who want to convert Excel workflows to a POSIX based cloud solution. If you want to combine moving to the cloud (e.g. for multi-user) with reducing vendor lock-in, this makes some sense I think.
- ossreality 11y ago
  C is "a unix language"? wtf?
- teraflop 11y ago
  One advantage that C has over most other languages is that it has a very simple and widely-supported ABI that can be embedded into virtually anything else under the sun, without additional dependencies. That's especially valuable in this case because the kinds of organizations that have lots of business logic in Excel spreadsheets are unlikely to want to switch programming languages to take advantage of a tool like this. Given that automatically-generated code is likely to be ugly no matter what language it's written in, it makes sense to target the lowest common denominator that everyone can benefit from.
- kcbanner 11y ago
  What makes C a Unix language?
  - cdcarter 11y ago
    Well, C was designed for the purpose of writing Unix.
  - Intermernet 11y ago
    Lots of answers to this one, including "It's not really", but the most commonly cited connection would probably be Dennis Ritchie. He was half of the original Unix team, and most of the original C team. There are also cross-overs in terms of "design ethos". (complex structures should be comprised of well-composed combinations of simple structures)
_delirium 11y ago
It's used in parts of engineering too. Matlab is more typical for complex models, but a reasonable number of models end up being implemented in Excel.
cm2187 11y ago
And let's be honest. If you ask an internal IT department to do in code the equivalent of what you do with a spreadsheet in a day, they will prioritize it, discuss specs for months, go away for another 6 months, come back with something that has nothing to do with what we are trying to achieve, then go away again. By the time it is up and running you probably don't need that stuff anymore. And of course you will never be able to update it. And if it stops working, IT will hide behind their ticket systems, which they seem to spend more time tweaking and upgrading than the applications they are supposed to care for. Ahhh. Corporate IT. I may miss it one day. But not today.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

727374 11y ago

Also, in addition to the other responses, excel is great for quickly modeling problems/systems with lots of inputs and outputs and calculations in between e.g. discounted cash flow.