[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":439},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-4085052":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":28,"sentiment":29,"stance_mix":30,"scored_comments":35,"aspects":36,"strip":43,"post_text":45,"what":46,"said":95,"maker_in_thread":250,"shape":255,"grid":258,"attempts":402,"same_week":403,"maker_shows":310,"maker_hidden":431,"reader_version":432,"card":433},"4085052","IronSpread","Script Excel with Python","title","Show HN: Script Excel with Python","http:\u002F\u002Fwww.ironspread.com","ironspread.com","karamazov",1339174229,2012,280,61,45,1677,3,"legend","dev_tools","excel scripting plugin","desktop_app",[24,25,26,27],"excel python","excel scripting","vba alternative","python plugin excel","debated",0.071,{"positive":31,"neutral":32,"mixed":33,"critical":34},12,15,0,10,37,{"idea":37,"execution":39,"pricing":41},{"positive":38,"critical":38},7,{"positive":40,"critical":33},2,{"positive":42,"critical":18},1,[33,44,33,44,18,18,44,33,18,42,33,42,18,42,42,33,18,42,42,44,42,33,33,18,44,18,44,44,18,18,18,33,18,44,44,18,44,33,18,18],5,null,{"problem":47,"audience":54,"pricing":66,"motivation":72,"time_to_build":45,"stack":79,"openness":92,"stage":93,"team_size":94},{"value":48,"source":49,"evidence":50},"Scripting Excel with Python instead of VBA","maker",[51],{"id":52,"by":11,"text":53},"4085433","Our goal is to replace VBScript. We'll have the same basic functionality, but using Python instead of VB, and with access to all of Python's libraries. It's backwards compatible…",{"value":55,"source":56,"evidence":57},"Excel users and offices with VBA-based spreadsheets","commenter",[58,62],{"id":59,"by":60,"text":61},"4085380","bmccormack","I still have a soft spot for VBA, especially in Excel. I wrote a supply-chain management application in Excel+VBA that's still in production today. As comfortable as I am with…",{"id":63,"by":64,"text":65},"4085877","ZoFreX","So many offices have lots of functionality written as VBA, you've made a lot of people very happy by giving us Python to play with!",{"value":67,"source":49,"evidence":68},"Free beta, will charge later; not open source",[69],{"id":70,"by":11,"text":71},"4085839","It's a free beta. We'll be charging for it down the line, but you can use this however you like for now. (It's not open source, though.)",{"value":73,"source":49,"evidence":74},"Replace VBScript with Python and its libraries",[75,76],{"id":52,"by":11,"text":53},{"id":77,"by":11,"text":78},"4085523","If you want to script something quickly, Python is better; you also have access to all of Python's libraries (numpy\u002Fpylab, for example). It depends on what you're doing, though.",[80,84],{"value":81,"source":49,"evidence":82},"Python",[83],{"id":52,"by":11,"text":53},{"value":85,"source":86,"evidence":87},"IronPython","inferred",[88],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},"4085769","willyt","Honest question; I havent tried to script xl or word for years. What is this doing that I couldn't do with IronPython or IronRuby?","paid","beta","unknown",{"praise":96,"objections":116,"requests":168,"questions":198,"alternatives":215},[97,106],{"value":98,"source":56,"evidence":99},"Makes routine scripting easier and offices benefit from Python over VBA",[100,101,102],{"id":59,"by":60,"text":61},{"id":63,"by":64,"text":65},{"id":103,"by":104,"text":105},"4085256","iamdave","This is awesome! I plan to use this 100%. Sent it to a few other excel power users in my org, thank you for this",{"value":107,"source":56,"evidence":108},"Backwards compatible with existing VBA code",[109,113],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"4086007","cheez","Wow, backwards compatible?! That's awesome. That must have taken some serious COM magic.",{"id":114,"by":11,"text":115},"4085499","Glad you like it! We're also backwards compatible - you can keep running old VBA code, and write new scripts in Python.",[117,135,146,157],{"value":118,"source":56,"evidence":119},"Existing COM access to Excel from Python is free",[120,124,127,131],{"id":121,"by":122,"text":123},"4085851","jlarocco","Why would I use this when I can already connect to Excel using COM for free?",{"id":125,"by":122,"text":126},"4086671","It was a real question. COM isn't hot new technology, but it works, costs $0 above and beyond Excel, and can access as much (or more) of Excel. The reason I ask is that after a…",{"id":128,"by":129,"text":130},"4087096","sandGorgon","Why would I use this when I can already connect to Excel using PyWin32+COM and be able to interact with Excel in Python for free? FTFY",{"id":132,"by":133,"text":134},"4086270","pneumatics","This isn't necessary, you can have access to the full Excel COM API, with tab-completion, backwards-compatibility etc, for free with iPython and the makepy.py script.…",{"value":136,"source":56,"evidence":137},"Expensive per-seat pricing expected",[138,142],{"id":139,"by":140,"text":141},"4109304","bradleyy","From a conversation with them, they are intending to charge around $2000\u002Fseat\u002Fmonth. This takes it out of the realm of possibility for me, but http:\u002F\u002Fexcel-dna.net\u002F looks like it…",{"id":143,"by":144,"text":145},"4086995","glimcat","> We'll be charging for it down the line Implement billing. Now. No excuses.",{"value":147,"source":56,"evidence":148},"No Mac support",[149,153],{"id":150,"by":151,"text":152},"4085431","il","Any plans for OS X support?",{"id":154,"by":155,"text":156},"4085246","jaxn","REALLY wish this was available for Mac.",{"value":158,"source":56,"evidence":159},"Recipients of shared spreadsheets need the plugin",[160,164],{"id":161,"by":162,"text":163},"4085220","adorton","Impressive. Would people I share a spreadsheet with need the plugin?",{"id":165,"by":166,"text":167},"4085928","gsivil","This can be a deal breaker for long long time",[169,174,181,191],{"value":170,"source":56,"evidence":171},"Mac OS X support",[172,173],{"id":150,"by":151,"text":152},{"id":154,"by":155,"text":156},{"value":175,"source":56,"evidence":176},"Pivot table support",[177],{"id":178,"by":179,"text":180},"4086055","moolcool","Any plans to support pivot tables?",{"value":182,"source":56,"evidence":183},"Excel 2003 and 2007 compatibility",[184,188],{"id":185,"by":186,"text":187},"4091074","fonzie","This seems pretty great. Any plans for compatibility with Excel 2003 and 2007?",{"id":189,"by":186,"text":190},"4095203","Awesome. You may already know, but a huge proportion of the large finance firms are still stuck with 2003 and from speaking to a few people, they don't seem super ready to…",{"value":192,"source":56,"evidence":193},"C# scripting of Excel",[194],{"id":195,"by":196,"text":197},"4090192","AlexDanger","This is great. I have to work with some very complex excel\u002FVBA apps and this will be a breath of fresh air. Is there anything out there that allows using C# to script\u002Fcontrol…",[199,204],{"value":200,"source":56,"evidence":201},"How does it differ from plain COM or IronPython access?",[202,203],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},{"id":125,"by":122,"text":126},{"value":205,"source":56,"evidence":206},"Is it open source or paid?",[207,211],{"id":208,"by":209,"text":210},"4085224","cschmidt","Is this an open source project, or are you planning to sell it?",{"id":212,"by":213,"text":214},"4085807","steve8918","What is the licensing for this? I couldn't tell whether this was free, if I had to pay, if it was open source, GPL, etc.",[216,223,230,241,246],{"value":217,"source":56,"evidence":218},"Pyvot (Microsoft, Apache licensed)",[219],{"id":220,"by":221,"text":222},"4085147","smortaz","This is great guys! We cooked up a similar thing called Pyvot (pivot). It's OSS\u002FApache - feel free to take\u002Fcontribute. Cheers, smortaz@microsoft. Video:…",{"value":224,"source":56,"evidence":225},"ResolverOne",[226],{"id":227,"by":228,"text":229},"4085365","mwexler","That's very clever. However, the ultimate integration of spreadsheet and Python has got to be ResolverOne (http:\u002F\u002Fwww.resolversystems.com\u002Fproducts\u002Fresolver-one\u002F) It's a really…",{"value":231,"source":56,"evidence":232},"PyXLL",[233,237],{"id":234,"by":235,"text":236},"4085324","yangyang","Nice. Also see PyXLL (http:\u002F\u002Fpyxll.com\u002F), which lets you write Excel plugins in Python (CPython).",{"id":238,"by":239,"text":240},"4093546","pyxll","If you want to call Python functions from Excel in the form of user defined functions, macros or menu functions (including macros bound to UI widgets and application events) you…",{"value":242,"source":56,"evidence":243},"PyWin32 COM access",[244,245],{"id":132,"by":133,"text":134},{"id":128,"by":129,"text":130},{"value":247,"source":56,"evidence":248},"Excel-DNA",[249],{"id":139,"by":140,"text":141},{"comments":34,"answered":38,"key":251},[252,253,254],{"id":114,"text":115},{"id":70,"text":71},{"id":77,"text":78},{"commenters":16,"max_depth":44,"maker_replies":34,"first_comment_mins":256,"lifespan_hours":257},17,128,[259,261,264,266,267,268,270,274,276,277,280,281,283,286,287,289,292,293,297,300,301,302,305,306,309,311,313,314,315,317,319,321,324,325,329,332,333,335,337,339,341,345,346,348,349,352,355,358,361,363,367,371,375,379,381,383,387,390,392,394,398],[220,33,33,260,221,33],"other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[262,33,33,260,263,33],"4087346","roryokane",[59,42,44,265,60,33],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea",[114,42,33,265,11,42],[63,42,44,265,64,33],[110,42,44,269,111,33],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fexecution",[271,42,18,272,273,33],"4087609","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution","DeepDuh",[275,42,18,272,111,33],"4088320",[227,40,33,260,228,33],[278,40,44,265,279,33],"4087377","dbecker",[234,18,33,260,235,33],[282,18,33,260,129,33],"4087107",[212,284,18,285,213,33],4,"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[70,284,33,285,11,42],[121,284,42,288,122,33],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[290,284,33,291,64,33],"4085873","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[125,284,42,288,122,33],[294,284,42,295,296,33],"4085953","project\u002Fcritical\u002Fpricing","ivolo",[298,284,18,299,111,33],"4086023","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[128,284,42,288,129,33],[143,284,42,295,144,33],[303,44,42,288,304,33],"4085397","dkhenry",[77,44,33,299,11,42],[307,44,33,291,308,33],"4086647","mattmanser",[161,310,18,299,162,33],6,[312,310,33,288,11,42],"4085227",[165,310,42,288,166,33],[132,38,42,288,133,33],[103,316,44,265,104,33],8,[318,316,33,291,11,42],"4085264",[238,320,42,288,239,33],9,[322,34,18,299,323,33],"4085309","nchlswu",[52,34,33,299,11,42],[326,327,33,260,328,33],"4085550",11,"shazam",[330,327,33,260,331,33],"4089483","jimberino",[185,31,18,272,186,33],[334,31,33,272,11,42],"4092694",[189,31,44,336,186,33],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fpricing",[150,338,18,272,151,33],13,[340,338,33,272,11,42],"4085551",[342,343,44,344,279,33],"4087369",14,"maker\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone",[195,32,44,265,196,33],[89,347,18,299,90,33],16,[154,256,18,272,155,33],[350,256,18,272,351,33],"4085308","paduc",[353,256,18,272,354,33],"4085720","vj44",[356,256,33,260,357,33],"4085332","josteink",[359,256,33,260,360,33],"4086915","jodoherty",[139,362,42,295,140,33],18,[364,365,44,269,366,33],"4087897",19,"edwinyzh",[368,369,44,265,370,33],"4085615",20,"mcarvin",[372,373,33,260,374,33],"4087966",21,"asto",[376,377,44,344,378,33],"4086815",22,"canuc",[178,380,18,299,179,33],23,[382,380,33,272,11,42],"4086747",[384,385,44,265,386,33],"4085302",24,"danielalela",[388,385,33,260,389,33],"4085878","mdda",[208,391,18,285,209,33],25,[393,391,33,285,11,42],"4085247",[395,391,18,396,397,33],"4085479","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","xfax",[399,400,33,260,401,33],"4090909",26,"Pyinex",[],[404,408,413,418,422,427],{"id":405,"name":406,"points":407,"category":20},"4081524","Proxino",105,{"id":409,"name":410,"points":411,"category":412},"4091049","most beautiful places",85,"consumer_social",{"id":414,"name":415,"points":416,"category":417},"4099054","FolloWords",73,"productivity",{"id":419,"name":420,"points":421,"category":417},"4084342","Wayback Letter",59,{"id":423,"name":424,"points":425,"category":426},"4099821","ClearTax",57,"web_saas",{"id":428,"name":429,"points":430,"category":412},"4088727","hn",56,false,"v2",{"id":434,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":431,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":28,"s":435,"top":18,"kw":436,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":33,"strip":437,"url":9,"mix":438,"praise":98,"objection":118,"sub":21},4085052,0.07,[24,25,26,27],"0505335031013110311510035355333035535033",[31,32,33,34],1793990882275]