IPython in Excel

https://datanitro.com/blog/2013/9/9/ipython_excel/

by vj44 • 13 years ago

73 25 13 years ago

nehalm• 13 years ago

Looks great - going to try it out.

wjnc2• 13 years ago

I grok why you would want to replace VBA for Excel by Python. But once you've switched to an iPython way of working, your pretty much above and beyond the spreadsheet world?

iPython-way: Build or import nice functions, import them, get your (new) data, run your models and see nice graphs in iPython.

So what the niche is that this product focusses on? Empowering the finance-via-spreadsheet world where separate programmers are dying to be allowed to use Python instead of VBA?

IanCal• 13 years ago

I do like FRP though, it'd be nice to be able to automatically update cells in an iPython notebook when dependencies change their data. Also, a notebook is quite a linear structure, a grid (or tree, possibly just an acyclic graph) might be a better representation.

wjnc2• 13 years ago

Good point. Excel then functions as the kind-of dashboard to lots of more powerful code.

miga• 13 years ago

Spreadsheet is more convenient way of visualizing a lot of numeric inputs and outputs at the same time.

Nicholas_C2• 13 years ago

I'm a financial analyst that uses VBA quite frequently (and sometimes unnecessarily, admittedly, I just like to program). I first learned to program in Python and I find VBA not as enjoyable to work with. However, I don't think I could justify going out and getting this product. Very small niche indeed, I'm not sure who would really need it.

digz• 13 years ago

As a heavy user of DataNitro in the finance world, I can attest to how much it has improved my life. It allows me to interact with my data providers' excel plugins in a much more expedient manner. I could use their direct data feeds, but testing things on those is a PITA.

Largely, though, I agree that DN isn't really necessary/useful but for a small niche... but when you need it, it's EXTREMELY necessary.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

In a prior life I used a lot of VBA to process some scenario modeling Excel spreadsheets. Python would have been much better. Python is also becoming more and more common in Financial Services.

I haven't used DataNitro, but it would have helped me in the past, and it fills a very real need. I think the niche may be bigger than you give it credit for.

LyndsySimon• 13 years ago

Two jobs ago, I built reports and dashboards, mostly in Excel. It was a nightmare. After three years of that, I did some demonstration of Python's capabilities and ended up working on a web-based enterprise reporting system.

These days, I work almost 100% in Python. While I'm not doing analysis much, iPython is awesome for "exploratory programming" - I can quickly build a function to do what I want, thoroughly test it, then import the and its associated tests back into my "real" environment.

The ease of integration external datasources alone makes Python extremely attractive for Excel.

I can easily imagine using iPython to control a small cluster of Amazon instances, using them to process some offensively large dataset (e.g., US Census data), generating a usably small resultset, and dropping it into Excel at the end to make pretty charts that don't look (visually) out of place with the rest of the executive's presentation.

You'd end up with Excel being the GUI of an arbitrarily powerful network of computing resources.

omegaham3• 13 years ago

My own job has some form requirements, one of which is a spreadsheet in Excel. Looks like I just found a way to automate that...

Nicholas_C2• 13 years ago

Why not just use VBA?

omegaham3• 13 years ago

Well, I have an Excel version of this: [1]

When I order a part, I have to enter all of this data. Most of the parts I order are repeat orders; I have all of my previous ones on file. I have a program right now that makes a LaTeX document for another form I have to fill out; I put in the NSN, and it populates the form with all of the rest of the information.

Up until now, I'd thought that I wouldn't be able to do the same thing with an Excel spreadsheet, and I haven't been able to build a table like that in LaTeX. So, this extension to Python seems to be the best option.

[1] (PDF) http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/eforms/dd13...

mjhea0• 13 years ago

because there's a better, more powerful tool, which is also easier to use

tocomment• 13 years ago

Python also has excellent Excel libraries for reading and writing Excel documents natively. http://www.python-excel.org/

jaxn• 13 years ago

All I want is for a good programmable spreadsheet on the Mac. Is that too much to ask?

(This is windows only)

hesdeadjim• 13 years ago

I wonder if there is any spreadsheet like functionality written in Python that could be embedded in an iPython notebook.

westurner• 13 years ago

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsort_(Unix)