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] -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?

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

A simple check? Then a prompt to download the expected version?

This isn't rocket science. This is Microsoft forcing people to continually pay them.

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

Would something like this work for the web or Teams versions of Excel?

Regardless, I agree. The license and remote only execution are horrible.

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

A python distribution could be bundled inside of excel.

[–] [email protected] 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.

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

It could use a venv for each excel file.

[–] [email protected] 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.