this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
181 points (98.4% liked)

Python

6230 readers
5 users here now

Welcome to the Python community on the programming.dev Lemmy instance!

๐Ÿ“… Events

October 2023

November 2023

PastJuly 2023

August 2023

September 2023

๐Ÿ Python project:
๐Ÿ’“ Python Community:
โœจ Python Ecosystem:
๐ŸŒŒ Fediverse
Communities
Projects
Feeds

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
erlingur@programming.dev
jnovinger@programming.dev
181
Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by pnutzh4x0r@lemmy.ndlug.org to c/python@programming.dev
57 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Microsoft is bringing popular programming language Python to Excel. A public preview of the feature is available today, allowing Excel users to manipulate and analyze data from Python.

You wonโ€™t need to install any additional software or set up an add-on to access the functionality, as Python integration in Excel will be part of Excelโ€™s built-in connectors and Power Query. Microsoft is also adding a new PY function that allows Python data to be exposed within the grid of an Excel spreadsheet. Through a partnership with Anaconda, an enterprise Python repository, popular Python libraries like pandas, statsmodels, and Matplotlib will be available in Excel.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] ooterness@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But why does it need to run in the cloud?

[โ€“] runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 year ago

๐Ÿ’ฐ๐Ÿ’ฐ๐Ÿ’ฐ By sending every calculation to Microsoft servers they can log what your company is doing and sell that data to ad-agencies. Also it forces you into a subscription.

[โ€“] rhymepurple@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not a fan of it either, but I'm not sure how else this could work seamlessly. How would you ensure that everyone you share your Excel file that utilizes Python has the expected Python setup on their machine? What if they have an older version of a library you used that breaks your script? What if they don't have Python installed at all?

While this will only work on Windows desktop at first, Microsoft plans to roll this out to "other platforms" over time. Is there any other way for this integration to work for Excel for web, iPad, and/or Teams?

[โ€“] Golther@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A python distribution could be bundled inside of excel.

[โ€“] rhymepurple@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's true. It wouldn't solve the dependency issue though (eg - I'm using Pandas v1.5.3, you're using Pandas v2.0.3) and I'm not sure how well it would work for some platforms like the web or Teams.

[โ€“] Golther@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure exactly. Maybe it is one reason why they are pushing an online container. I guess then then it can have its own issues of dependency hell. At least with the container approach, everything either works or it is broken, and there is no having to verify which versions of Excel are installed to make the spreadsheet run.

I doubt the end user would have control over package versions, but I had not gotten around to playing with it yet.