Since its inception, Microsoft Excel has changed how people organize, analyze, and visualize their data, providing a basis for decision-making for the flying billionaires heads up in the clouds who don’t give a fuck for life offtheline

    • GrayBackgroundMusic
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      1 year ago

      I would agree with you, if I’d never met a corporate executive. Anecdotal, but all the CEO’s I’ve ever met have got to grasp at any power that anyone will give them and then exploit it for profit as much as possible. If it ran locally, then they couldn’t charge a subscription fee. They even do the drug dealer trick of letting you have the first one free (there’s a preview period) and then taking it away unless you pay (the sub fee).

    • style99@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It would be very strange if you couldn’t just export your data to csv and then run a python script in a shell on it.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Python is fast enough, and generally quite a bit faster than complex spreadsheet formulas. I’ve seen formulas that can take minutes that Python could do in seconds. A web request isn’t going to matter that much.

      • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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        1 year ago

        Web requests are \very\ slow compared to CPU computations, not to mention that time has to be doubled since it’s a two-way route.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Sure, but it happens once. So as long as Python saves you more than the half second or so round trip, it’ll be preferable.

          I’d prefer it to be embedded, but I can absolutely see it being useful even if it’s cloud-only.

          • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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            1 year ago

            Wouldn’t it need to send to the cloud and back every time you change one of the cells the script is depending on?

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Yup, most likely. I’m saying the total calculation w/ Excel formulas is often greater than that round trip + computation time w/ Python. Excel formulas are pretty slow.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Think huge formulas. I’ve seen formulas take minutes in Excel, but seconds when implemented better in a script. If you haven’t worked with massive formulas, you’re not the target market here.

                  Another application is accessing external APIs that don’t have internal support. If you’re accessing an external API, you’re already paying a network overhead cost, so adding another isn’t going to matter much.

  • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Because it was so much easier to send data to the cloud than embed a Python interpreter. 🤦

    I wouldn’t be surprised if there already is one in the monstrosity that is Excel

      • earthling@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yep. Everyone in the thread asking this question seems clueless to me. Macros are already a threat. I can’t imagine what a shitshow full on python would be.

        • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          The Python API they gave doesn’t have disk access. Maybe somebody’ll discover an exploit but that’s for everything.

  • bedrooms@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I can understand the cloud part. they wanted it work on the web and phones. They do know many businesses don’t want cloud, so I see a good chance they’ll ship it with embedded Python eventually.

    • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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      1 year ago

      Phones can also run Python and web is already a pretty separate version, I don’t see why they can’t only make the web version cloud.

      • bedrooms@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        At least iPhone apps usually redirect Python tasks to their servers. That’s one reason there are projects like Tensorflow Light.

        • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          For instance? All the python apps I’ve downloaded so far seem to function offline.

            • Aatube@kbin.socialOP
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              1 year ago

              That’s just machine learning which is very resource consuming. It has no relation to your purported case of phones redirecting all python tasks to servers.

              • bedrooms@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Okay, I dug more to find out I’m wrong.

                But isn’t ML technology a thing Excel offers with its new Python interface?