

DataNitro (YC S12) launches Python for Microsoft Excel - vj44
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/10/python-for-microsoft-excel-company-ironspread-comes-out-of-beta-changes-name-to-data-nitro/

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hkmurakami
I remember being so excited about this product that I sent a msg to the
IronSpread team thanking them for their work, even though I hadn't even used
their product yet. (I'd never done that before for any product)

It's great to see this taking off (and I had no idea it was part of YC until
now), and am looking forward to future updates!

Best of luck to the team :)

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vj44
Thanks hkmurakami! - founder.

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sandGorgon
Please take my money if you port VBA on top of your Python runtime. And take
even more money if said embedded Python runtime is available on Openoffice as
well. [1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4360454>

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sandGorgon
BTW, I'm not so sure Python in the right choice for this integration.

Whitespace sensitivity is (arguably) a nice developer mind trick, however the
target market for VBA are non-developers, who want to google for stuff, copy
paste and get on with it. Which means, you cannot make assumptions about
things like editors honoring whitespace, as well as the cognitive processes to
rely on spacing etc.

This is why I strongly believe Python is the wrong language for this - but
some language is definitely needed (Lua ? Javascript? Ruby?)

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karamazov
With VBA, you can't just copy-paste code from google - it's rare that you'll
find something that does _exactly_ what you want it to do on your specific
spreadsheet. Readability, then, becomes important - and Python is easier to
parse and edit for someone with basic programming skills than VBA is.

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vineet
Previous (2 months old) discussion here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4085052>

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vtail
Nice work. Some piece of feedback: documentation is lacking any information on
how to interact with VBA functionality/classes that you don't have your
wrappers for. E.g. how do I work with creating/opening/interacting with other
workbooks?

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jenntoda
Great job guys! I'd love to know bit more about the exact benefits of using
Python and a few simple examples of how to use it... then again, I am just a
casual excel user so I am likely not the right audience

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karamazov
Thanks! We have some basic examples up on our blog. A good one is blackjack in
Excel [1] - it shows off some of the versatility of Python as compared to VBA,
like the ability to run a script in the background and have it respond to user
actions.

[1] [https://datanitro.com/blog/2012/07/31/Interactive-
Spreadshee...](https://datanitro.com/blog/2012/07/31/Interactive-Spreadsheets-
blackjack/)

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doppenhe
Congrats guys love this stuff have been using it for a couple of months. The
people who work on the Excel team were really impressed when I demoed it to
them. Best of luck!

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yukuan
I think this is so awesome, I spent a summer as a lowly intern for a bank once
trying to write up an entire debt model in VBA (bad idea on so many
fronts...), and I wanted to gouge my eyes out at the end. I would've given an
arm and a leg to be able to write in Python, as I'm sure many others...so
excited to see this happen!

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porter
Why the name change?

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karamazov
One of the founders here - people kept confusing us with IronPython, and/or
assuming we use IronPython.

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loganfrederick
Might want to change the address in your user profile as well!

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mhb
Is there currently any way to use Python in a Google Document spreadsheet?

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TazeTSchnitzel
Use a Python-to-JS compiler with Google Apps Script.

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hncommenter13
FYI, for Java there's XLLoop (open source), JExcel (commercial) and Obba
(commercial). Haven't used these myself, but looking into it.

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hogu
xlloop works for a bunch of languages, python, ruby, etc... But as far as i
remember, xlloop is more of an RPC facility.

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nell
Oh wow, YC!! I'm sure the product would be awesome. Let me check out the link.

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reinhardt
Any comparison with ResolverOne and why they have a better chance to succeed?

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mcarvin
Awesome work guys.

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ivolo
Congrats guys.

