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Comment by tbatterii | Hacker News Reader

a .net based language probably already has hooks into the office API's, that would be one reason to use iron python vs. regular cpython.

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The problem with ironpython is that it's not always compatible with all python libraries (esp. those based on C extensions; ie. heavy, scientific libraries similar to scipy); Using regular CPython immediately solves this problem. Also, the official .Net office API (read: VSTO) is not targeted on newbie programmers (imho).

and the problem with CPython is that is wouldn't be compatible with any of the office api's that are likely based on .net technology. so which one do you think would be better for office. I haven't done ms office automation since office 2k7 but that is the way it was heading.

edit: oh I see what you are getting at. a new product from a new company created at mit in 2012. https://www.datanitro.com/

I would argue that a $500 license is also not targeted at newbie programmers either.

can you run native python from excel without shelling out $500 ?

That's exactly what DataNitro offers - the entire Excel api in (C)Python.

Oh, and it's free for non-commercial use (educational etc.)

but none of the office api

so datanitro really is the future of excel as described in the blog post. good to know.

I'm still curious as to how putting any "real" programming language behind spreadsheets is supposed to fix the situation that happened last week. the blog wasn't very convincing and it feels like it's just giving a poor disciplined group of people a more powerful tool to screw things up with. That's not a future I look forward to.

yep see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208950

Or F#, so you're already in a more functional environment.

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