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A comment on Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel?.

Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by asimjalis on Sunday January 11, 2009 @03:44PM (#429520)
Here are some features that would be nice in Excel:

  1. Programmability in something other than VBA (Python?).
  2. Online spreadsheets like Google.
  3. Better search and replace.
  4. Ability to reference tables through URLs so they could show up in blogs and in HTML.
     Something like this: http://ycspreadsheets.com/joe/doc1.ss?s=1&block=a1:c10. This
     should produce HTML that some javascript can replace in my blog with the table pulled
     out of the spreadsheet.
  5. Ability to pull and reference data dynamically from online sources. For example,
     imagine a spreadsheet cell that pulled the current stock price of GOOG every time it
     was viewed. And the rest of the spreadsheet would naturally update automatically.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by kirubakaran on Sunday January 11, 2009 @06:08PM (#429788)
1. Already doable to a significant extent http://www.google.com/search?q=excel+python

2. Well, Google does this :)

3. Follows from 1.

4. Good idea, but why not just use this: http://www.google.com/search?q=spreadsheet+widget

Or http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=55244...

5. Already easily doable in Excel http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6115870.h...

In Google Spreadsheet, just use: =GoogleFinance("GOOG"; "price")

------

And I hope Google is working on a REPL for Google Docs where you can interactively run any language on your spreadsheet. :-)

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by pg on Monday January 12, 2009 @12:47AM (#430171)
Actually a repl might be just the thing in a spreadsheet.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by kirubakaran on Monday January 12, 2009 @01:32AM (#430208)
I just learned that this sort of exists: http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/doc/sect-extending-python...

[ credit : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=430129 ]

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by mattmaroon on Sunday January 11, 2009 @11:17PM (#430078)
Can't you accomplish #2 via Sharepoint or Office Online? I know there are some options if you click Windows Logo > Publish in Excel 2007.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by kirubakaran on Monday January 12, 2009 @12:13AM (#430128)
I think so. But I don't think the published spreadsheet can be edited online.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by aneesh on Sunday January 11, 2009 @04:33PM (#429617)
2. The next version of Excel will be online. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_14)
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by FreeRadical on Sunday January 11, 2009 @04:09PM (#429559)
I thought number 5 was already possible in excel :/
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by jaxn on Sunday January 11, 2009 @11:53PM (#430105)
It is already possible in Excel, but it is very poorly documented.

I have a few sheets that I use which pull from a non-ODBC URL using http. It populates a range of cells with new data automatically each time the spreadsheet is opened. (on a Mac too).

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by gpjt on Monday January 12, 2009 @05:50AM (#430363)
"Programmability in something other than VBA (Python?)."

Resolver One is a spreadsheet that has that: http://www.resolversystems.com/products/programmability.php

OpenOffice Calc has some kind of Python programmability too, though I don't know how good it is.

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by joe_the_user on Sunday January 11, 2009 @04:29PM (#429603)
"Ability to pull and reference data dynamically from online sources. For example, imagine a spreadsheet cell that pulled the current stock price of GOOG every time it was viewed. And the rest of the spreadsheet would naturally update automatically."

Yes. This feature implemented well would create a really cool app. What would be even more interesting would a situation where several different sheets could pull data from each using a clever protocol to avoid the churning of values. Imagine different enterprises which each had online sheets describing their current production abilities and current supply needs. With a clever protocol, their production processes be semi-automatically coordinated (and remember, semi-automatic, some throttling is necessary to prevent self-referential cells from feeding back in an unhelpful way).

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by gruseom on Sunday January 11, 2009 @04:43PM (#429640)
Could the "clever protocol" simply be: refresh the numbers when the user refreshes a page?
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by gsiener on Monday January 12, 2009 @08:04AM (#430423)
The issue with this is that Excel refreshes the active workbook by default after every change. Any quant or someone dealing with huge sheets of formulas learn that you can change this behavior to default to refresh via shift+F9 (I think)
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by gruseom on Monday January 12, 2009 @02:12PM (#430937)
That's for local changes. I think what we're talking about here is a sheet (at one URL) referencing a completely different sheet (at some other URL). The equivalent in Excel, I suppose, would be one .xls file referencing another.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by martin on Sunday January 11, 2009 @05:46PM (#429756)
#1 is possible using COM automation. You can write an app that interfaces with Excel via COM, or integrate your own functionality into Excel by developing a COM add-in.

#5 can be done in Excel by implementing an RTD server (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP030662371033.aspx). An interesting example is here: http://fransking.blogspot.com/2007/03/yfquotertd-real-time-d...

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by igorhvr on Monday January 12, 2009 @06:11AM (#430371)
#1 is really important - VBA is an awful language.

My two cents: add support for arbitrary precision math. Sometimes you need it, and when you do, you really need it.

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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by lunchbox on Sunday January 11, 2009 @06:41PM (#429833)
(1) can be done with Visual Studio Tools for Office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio_Tools_for_Office
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by carterschonwald on Sunday January 11, 2009 @06:29PM (#429817)
what about being able to specify linear algebraic manipulations of part of the spread sheets, that would go a long way to make many things easier (sort of a mini matlab, but done right)
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by jaxn on Sunday January 11, 2009 @11:55PM (#430108)
There is an equation tool in Excel for this purpose.
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by bocajuniors on Monday January 12, 2009 @12:14AM (#430129)
Gnumeric is programmable in Python
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Re:Ask HN: What can't you do in Excel? by kirubakaran on Monday January 12, 2009 @12:30AM (#430146)
Awesome! Thanks.

http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/doc/sect-extending-python...

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