this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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 won’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 Excel’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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

But why? Excel is a shit way to work with big amounts of data due to it's own format's complexity and bloated software. It's welcome to implement python, but that's not what holds it down. Opening a big csv would crash it on the same machine that loads it with a python IDE in seconds. It's not made for this. It's like, nice, but the volume of information you need to make it matter would break Excel in halves.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

This feels like a really dated take to me. Leaving aside whether this was true in the past, in 2023, Excel is happy to open absolutely gargantuan files, and it's quite speedy once it's done so. You can even directly tie it to a database via ODBC if you want, and that works (albeit it obviously flattens the data out in the process, so goodbye foreign keys in any real sense). It also has tons of very easy-to-use data manipulation tools (pivot tables, tables in general, data extrapolation, graphs, etc.) that end up being wonderful complements to something like Python.

Could you write a Python program that would run faster than pure Excel and do the same thing? I mean, probably (although Excel's core execution engine is honestly pretty freaking fast). But could you write it as quickly? Maybe, maybe not. And certainly someone who knows Excel well would have an easier time adding a little Python to patch up any issues than rewriting the whole thing from scratch.

tl;dr I think you're not being accurate about contemporary Excel, and I separately suspect you're not really the target audience here

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree with all your points about Excel being capable. However, I'm struggling to think of examples where this newly announced Python integration within Excel would be helpful (with the exception of new/different visualizations) - especially for the reasons you stated about modern Excel.

Are there any use cases that you can think of where someone who knows Excel well would resort to "adding a little Python to patch up any issues"?

[–] someguy3 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably like me. I knew just enough VBA to do what I wanted in Excel, but not enough to write it from scratch in vba or C++.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you mean? This new Python integration cannot accomplish the majority of things capable in VBA or C++ (or even regular Python).

[–] someguy3 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can do basic things in vba. I don't know enough to leave Excel and start writing a standalone program in vba, c++, or Python. I can learn a few commands, but I'm not going to become a programmer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you're saying that you're more likely to use Python in Excel than Python outside Excel?

If you're "not going to become a programmer", wouldn't it just be better to learn the extra Excel formula or two instead of learning Python, Python data structures, Pandas, etc. in addition to how all that works within Excel?

Learning how to use HSTACK(), VSTACK(), XLOOKUP(), and other newer Excel fomulas will likely be much easier than understanding how to do the equivalent in Python.

[–] someguy3 1 points 1 year ago

I would never use Python outside of Excel just like I never use visual basic outside of Excel.

I would use it for the same reason I (rarely) use vba in Excel, some things you can't do with formulas.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe some sort of "team toolbox" of logical functions or something? I've seen some nightmare shops where big reports have a page of manipulations that get copied to new reports/projects every time, and each represents some sort of canned, core business logic.

I dunno. I cant imagine how the code storage will go

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The code storage for Python is no different than regular Excel functions (eg - VLOOKUP(), SUM(), etc.), meaning that it is stored within an Excel cell. The only differences are that Python code is run remotely vs Excel functions running locally and the location of Python's code matters vs Excel's functions are location agnostic (ie - Python code runs in cells located left-to-right, top-to-bottom but Excel's functions can dynamically determine the calculation order/location).

I'm not sure that this new Python integration changes much about this use case (except for another way to accomplish the same/similar tasks).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Could I write a Python program that does the same thing as Excel but faster?

I don't need to. It's called pandas

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hear you.

I don't know how new Excel performes and I thought it's the same as ten years ago - the version I'm trapped in. With people who obsessively try to drive it to the edge where it's not responsive on average office PCs.

But if it works well with various big spreadsheets now, it's a wonder, with how many new people start to tackle programming with Python. I obiviosly won't write a script faster than normal operational speeds of software, it's just some tables ended up that big and broken I could only open them like that. But that, I guess, is exclusion?

It's just the issue of people using a microscope as a hammer when they need to break nuts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So, assuming you're still on Office 2010, you're missing (off the top of my head, but I believe these were all Excel 2013 or later):

  • Initial support for super-large spreadsheets, with accompanying perf improvements (this was maybe 2013?), and then lots more perf improvements in 2016 and 2019 as people started using those really big sheets;
  • Flash Fill support, which is kind of like an AI (not in the ChatGPT-sense)-powered fill down (so e.g., nowadays, if I enter "Sept 6th" and then "October 4th", then it'll offer a completion of November 1, since that's the first Wednesday of the month);
  • Heavily improved Pivot Tables, including Slicers, Power Pivot, and Pivot Drill Down, which make exploring data a lot easier;
  • Forecasting tools; and
  • Much better Tables, making it a lot easier to write formulae entirely with named references rather than cell IDs There's more, but that's what I could remember off the top of my head/could quickly verify so I was sure I wasn't misspeaking. LibreOffice Calc unfortunately also lacks basically all of these features (and the lack of Tables in particular means that OpenOffice sheets still have a lot of A2:A300 garbage where Excel would instead just have e.g. SomeTable[Heading]. E.g., an actual formula from a sheet I currently maintain to track my team's sprints: =XLOOKUP([@Verified],SprintMeta[Start],SprintMeta[Sprint Name],"Unknown",-1). Python's easier to read here, but this is honestly doing a lot while being surprisingly readable (especially if you're familiar with XLOOKUP, which is basically how you do keyed array access in Excel)

You have totally legitimate gripes about Excel; I'm not denying that. But I do think that you might be pleasantly surprised on newer versions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I agree! I'm not sure why you're being downvoted either.

This new integration just allows you to do data analysis and data visualization of existing data within an Excel file via Python. The output of your Python scripts is limited to the Excel file. The Python environment itself is also limited as it runs on Microsoft's platform and is controlled by Microsoft.

The (Excel) problem that people already using Python for data analysis/visualization is that they have to use Excel files. Reading/writing Excel files via Python can sometimes be tedious or limiting. Utilizing Python inside of Excel via this integration may help in some scenarios, but they won't be able to use custom libraries built internally, control the Python environment (eg - must use specific version of Python or Python library, can't utilize all Python libraries available on pip, etc.), connect to all necessary external data sources via Python, and utilize proper VCS tools like git.

The problem that people automating tasks via Python have is that there is no Python library nearly as capable of reading or manipulating Excel files as VBA is. This new Python integration does not change that.

The problem that Excel users have is that they want more advanced (or simple/easier) data analysis and data visualization capabilities. However, with Excel's dynamic array formulas, LAMBDA formula, Power Query, and Power Pivot, Excel is becoming much more capable than it ever was. If those tools cannot meet your needs, you likely need to move to something like R, Python, or some other tool. Embedding Python into Excel like this integration does still limits Python with all of Excel's current restraints (size, performance, etc.).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Sounds like this won’t be the right tool for your use case

[–] DontAskAboutUpdog 1 points 1 year ago

I guess you could write some more advanced functions and give that spreadsheet to non-programmers.

But I agree, if you know python, you have no business working with excel. Jupyter notebook + pandas + numpy and matplotlib is way better than anything excel can bring to the table (no pun intended).

[–] LazaroFilm 1 points 1 year ago

Because this may allow companies that are already using excel and not planning on changing to actually have a powerful programming language.