I don't think they literally meant another Excel. Just something that is easily accessible and usable by non-programmers to do very 'programmy' things, etc.
Agreed.
>But excel proficiency acquisition is very similar to a programming proficiency acquisition
Strong disagree. Maybe if you only consider those extreme cases you referenced (ray-tracing, heavy VBA, etc.), sure. But in general? No shot.
Excel gives immediate feedback with a visual interface. There's no need to learn about variables or syntax or memory or compiling. There's no dependencies and no package managers. It abstracts nearly everything away. Click the place you want the thing to go, type the thing. Want a chart? Click the picture of the chart you like and click and drag over what you want in the chart. Want to change chart colors? Click the color you want. Want to change how the data is displayed visually? Press the bold button, or the color button, or the border button, whatever your heart desires is a click away with the same interface your used to with Word.
A great comparison is a geographic heatmap. In Excel, you need 2 columns. One with some States/Provinces and the other with some numbers. Then you click the big map button and instantly have your map. I can write the instructions for it in the space of a napkin and someone who has never touched Excel can be making all the maps they want. Now think about how you would explain making the same geographic heatmap in Python (or whatever your 'easy' language of choice is) to someone who has never learned any programming concepts.
They literally start using it as a way to lay out tables (usually of data). Then they make graphs. And add more tables. And learn how to use it like a basic pocket calculator (half of the formula I see that should be sums are actually =B21+B22+B23+B24+B25…) Then comes SUM. Then VLOOOKUP. Perhaps some IFs or COUNTIFs.
This process can take years for someone to go from first use to anything even slightly programming-like, if you squint at it.
A tiny fraction of these people ever do anything complex enough it looks even much like low-code or no-code "development". Even less write macros.
But you know what? In the first half hour, when all they wanted was to email round a list of team members and their lunch preferences, they already achieved something with Excel that they found useful, and they felt productive ever since. Most Excel users spend almost NO time learning the tool compared to how much time they spend getting (what they see as, and what probably is) value out of it, even when we are sat in sheer terror as we witness the horror they have unleashed on the world.
That is the bar you have to clear to make a "better Excel".
How is that different from the present? Why are these "AI-transformations" different from what a compiler can do?
You’ve seen copilot right? (https://github.com/features/copilot)
It’s fundamentally more sophisticated. This is like asking what is the difference between modern ML translation and the previous 20 years of research on language translation; the former actually works.
The latter basically doesn’t except in very specific circumstances.
Compilers can turn language into instructions only in a limited extremely specific set of circumstances.
...because, although I could argue about those points, it's fundamentally unrelated to the OP, and issue that programming is hard, and, for a very long time, no one has really had any idea how to solve it.
Now, however, AI generated code (like copilot) is, for the first time in a long time, a potential avenue to actually change how software is created at all levels.
I think there's pretty interesting, because it opens up a lot of new opportunities.
Is the future dynamic languages / high level specifications that are AI-transformed into typed verbose languages like C/Rust/whatever and then compiled?
The ancient tools like Rational Rose tried to do this, but the tech was never actually technically good enough. Maybe... we'll see a real change in this space as the sophistication of the models improves... or maybe, like self-driving cars, it's always going to be 'nearly good enough'.
Hard to say.
...but, hot damn. More excels? Please no. Excel already exists. Don't rebuild that stuff again. Build new, different interesting tools please.