Python in Excel is now generally available for Windows users of Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise. Last August, in partnership with Anaconda, we..
  • @jacksilver
    13•3 months ago

    My biggest issue with it is that it runs everything in the cloud. So you’re shipping your data to Microsoft and have latency to run anything. Seems insecure and added complexity to get a bit more out of excel.

    • @[email protected]
      11•3 months ago

      Oh seriously? When there were rumblings of it coming years ago, I just assumed it would be implemented as a VBA successor, have everything local but just baked into excel. I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised though…

      • @jacksilver
        7•3 months ago

        Yeah I was really disappointed when I heard it was a cloud solution. I think it’s due to complexity of python runtime environments, but I doubt msoft minds the opportunity to take more control.

    • @[email protected]English
      9•3 months ago

      I agree with everything you said, but (in Microsoft’s eyes) this is a feature - not a bug.

      Without this cloud component, how could:

      • Microsoft make sure that the accounting team does not introduce a malicious/old Python library into the Excel file?
      • Microsoft protect its users from writing/running inefficient, buggy, or malicious Python code?
      • Microsoft provide a Python runtime to users who do not know how to install Python?
      • Microsoft charge to run code that you wrote in a free, open source software programming language on a device that you own?