The Desktop App - with a backend that you speak of already exists.....it's called Dodeca by a small company known as Applied Olap. It works with relational databases as well as Oracle's Essbase. An awesome tool but one built around Excel. I do not work for Applied Olap, but deploy it at my corporation and our Finance team absolutely loves it.
Oh word. This seems like the right idea. But it seems a little tricky that it's so tied to Oracle (or requires a database at all). That's why I kind of like the DuckDB idea. With DuckDB, you could make something like this, and essentially have a database live inside of it too. So you could use it without any external sources, or connect it to one if you wanted to.
So this kind of exists? But it's like, Python cells, which essentially just gives you more flexibility with Excel formulas. I want something that's more like a sheet tab that's Python, where you can:
- Hideously mash stuff together in Excel, like you normally do
- Take those results and do some python nonsense to it
- Put the results back in Excel, for more hideous mashups
Getting that experience right seems really hard. But it would be pretty cool.
I've always wondered how that balance is going. It seems like lots of people use Google sheets almost exclusively for personal use (budgeting and planning and stuff), and a lot mostly-Mac tech companies use it for work. Because those are the worlds I'm in, I personally don't actually see Excel all that much. But it also still seems like the world runs on it. Is that because every Fortune 500 company (and especially finance, etc) is in it? Or do I just live in a weird, Mac-using, cloud-zealot bubble and Excel still has 95% of the spreadsheet market share?
Wild take to call Taylor Swift Gen Z pop music. xD Here's the question that haunts me: Out of the main pop girlies right now (Taylor Swift, Chappel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX) who is most likely to be a closet Excel fangirl? I feel like Charli probably keeps some really bizarre spreadsheets like ranking raves she's played at, things like that.
ok, these are conversations i'm really here for (and not the, uh, entanglements about BI nonsense). My take:
- Taylor Swift: Has an army of people with Excel sheets behind her, reviews "state of the tour" decks every week, carefully triangulates everything. But she doesn't use Excel; that's what her minions are for. And they spend most of their time making sure the formatting is exactly how Taylor likes it.
- Chappell Roan: Uses Google sheets. Does very boring, normal stuff with it. Keeps a budget. One is shared with her friends, and it is a splitwise.
- Sabrina Carpenter: Doesn't own a computer. Not because she's a luddite, but because she wants to brand herself as a fun girlie who's here for a good time, and fun girlies who are here for a good time don't spend their time on computers.
- Charli XCX: Has a computer covered in kind of alarming stickers. Her keyboard is dirty, and a little sticky. She has 12 Excel files open, 1 is some rough attempt to do some sort of math, the other 11 are completely empty.
No part of me will ever believe that taylor swift doesn't do something like that. And being so rich and famous that you can successfully live without a computer really is the dream.
Great post! I think Google Sheets has some of the cloud capability you talk about. by some sources, it has about a 20% market share today, and is growing. The precursors to excel were lotus 123 and visicalc. VisiCalc pretty much died when 123 came out, but 123 I understand kept being sold by IBM until 2013. So it takes a long time for these tools to die.
Yeah, it seems like if Excel really does go away, that'll be the boring version of the story. Microsoft fell behind Google in the cloud office suite world; when companies slowly move off of Outlook and desktop Word, they choose Gmail, docs, etc over O365; sheets is easier (and cheaper) to pick up in that world than Excel. Still, it seems like Sheets will be kind of capped if it's just a saas product that doesn't really work without an internet connection (offline mode exists, but you gotta remember to enable it). How will the consultants do their number crunching on airplanes??
It got a link in this sentence: "So far, most attempts to make a polyglot data tool stick notebooks in BI tools or stick spreadsheets in notebooks." Though, yeah, I would call it an enhancement to their notebooks by mimicking a few things about spreadsheets, and not an enhancement to Excel.
The Desktop App - with a backend that you speak of already exists.....it's called Dodeca by a small company known as Applied Olap. It works with relational databases as well as Oracle's Essbase. An awesome tool but one built around Excel. I do not work for Applied Olap, but deploy it at my corporation and our Finance team absolutely loves it.
Oh word. This seems like the right idea. But it seems a little tricky that it's so tied to Oracle (or requires a database at all). That's why I kind of like the DuckDB idea. With DuckDB, you could make something like this, and essentially have a database live inside of it too. So you could use it without any external sources, or connect it to one if you wanted to.
Indeed! ✊🏻
Native Python in Excel will unlock God mode. Excel, possibly the best application ever created.
So this kind of exists? But it's like, Python cells, which essentially just gives you more flexibility with Excel formulas. I want something that's more like a sheet tab that's Python, where you can:
- Hideously mash stuff together in Excel, like you normally do
- Take those results and do some python nonsense to it
- Put the results back in Excel, for more hideous mashups
Getting that experience right seems really hard. But it would be pretty cool.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-python-in-excel-a33fbcbe-065b-41d3-82cf-23d05397f53d
As an ex-Googler who worked in Google Workspace sales, I can definitely affirm that Excel was always the biggest stone in our way.
I've always wondered how that balance is going. It seems like lots of people use Google sheets almost exclusively for personal use (budgeting and planning and stuff), and a lot mostly-Mac tech companies use it for work. Because those are the worlds I'm in, I personally don't actually see Excel all that much. But it also still seems like the world runs on it. Is that because every Fortune 500 company (and especially finance, etc) is in it? Or do I just live in a weird, Mac-using, cloud-zealot bubble and Excel still has 95% of the spreadsheet market share?
Wild take to call Taylor Swift Gen Z pop music. xD Here's the question that haunts me: Out of the main pop girlies right now (Taylor Swift, Chappel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX) who is most likely to be a closet Excel fangirl? I feel like Charli probably keeps some really bizarre spreadsheets like ranking raves she's played at, things like that.
ok, these are conversations i'm really here for (and not the, uh, entanglements about BI nonsense). My take:
- Taylor Swift: Has an army of people with Excel sheets behind her, reviews "state of the tour" decks every week, carefully triangulates everything. But she doesn't use Excel; that's what her minions are for. And they spend most of their time making sure the formatting is exactly how Taylor likes it.
- Chappell Roan: Uses Google sheets. Does very boring, normal stuff with it. Keeps a budget. One is shared with her friends, and it is a splitwise.
- Sabrina Carpenter: Doesn't own a computer. Not because she's a luddite, but because she wants to brand herself as a fun girlie who's here for a good time, and fun girlies who are here for a good time don't spend their time on computers.
- Charli XCX: Has a computer covered in kind of alarming stickers. Her keyboard is dirty, and a little sticky. She has 12 Excel files open, 1 is some rough attempt to do some sort of math, the other 11 are completely empty.
-Taylor Swift running a WTR (weekly tour review) is an incredible mental image.
-Chappell understands that no stupid ass SaaS budgeting tool will top a GSheet budget
-Sabrina is real for this and we should all get rid of our computers
-I don't know what alarming stickers Charli has but she is brat for ALL of them xD
No part of me will ever believe that taylor swift doesn't do something like that. And being so rich and famous that you can successfully live without a computer really is the dream.
Great post! I think Google Sheets has some of the cloud capability you talk about. by some sources, it has about a 20% market share today, and is growing. The precursors to excel were lotus 123 and visicalc. VisiCalc pretty much died when 123 came out, but 123 I understand kept being sold by IBM until 2013. So it takes a long time for these tools to die.
Yeah, it seems like if Excel really does go away, that'll be the boring version of the story. Microsoft fell behind Google in the cloud office suite world; when companies slowly move off of Outlook and desktop Word, they choose Gmail, docs, etc over O365; sheets is easier (and cheaper) to pick up in that world than Excel. Still, it seems like Sheets will be kind of capped if it's just a saas product that doesn't really work without an internet connection (offline mode exists, but you gotta remember to enable it). How will the consultants do their number crunching on airplanes??
I'm shocked he didn't mention HEX and their enhancements to Excel.
It got a link in this sentence: "So far, most attempts to make a polyglot data tool stick notebooks in BI tools or stick spreadsheets in notebooks." Though, yeah, I would call it an enhancement to their notebooks by mimicking a few things about spreadsheets, and not an enhancement to Excel.