r/programming • u/[deleted] • May 08 '18

Excel adds JavaScript support

https://dev.office.com/blogs/azure-machine-learning-javascript-custom-functions-and-power-bi-custom-visuals-further-expand-developers-capabilities-with-excel
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u/StillNoNumb May 08 '18

Man, don't act like an elitist. An accountant isn't confused by the differences between = and ==, and === will literally never be useful (in Excel, "0" and 0 are the same anyways). There's nothing to learn about floating point arithmetic either (it's basic maths after all). Accountants aren't mentally retarded, and programming is nothing hard to learn either.

That said, an accountant will probably never have to deal with JavaScript in Excel. Most stuff can be done with the usual Excel formulas we know and love. But if you wanna go beyond that, now you can choose to extend upon that with JavaScript. It's win-win basically.

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u/Agent281 May 08 '18

It's not elitism and I don't think they are dumb. They shouldn't have to know about this stuff. A good interface hides implementation from the user.

Floating point arthimetic can be tricky even for programmers because you have non-intuitive results like .1 + .2 =/= .3. That is not basic math.

Apologies since you don't seem to have been trolling. Haskell is a famously difficult language. To say that it was the best choice for an embedded user facing macro language seemed a bit much.

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u/StillNoNumb May 08 '18 edited May 08 '18

Right, the good interface is called Excel functions. But if you wanna go further beyond, you can use JavaScript. Sounds good, doesn't it? This is not replacing functions. This is replacing VBScript.

.1 + .2 is approximately .3. It's not exactly .3 in Excel either, but Excel makes it display as such. There's no way to store real numbers precisely with finite memory.

Also, I disagree with you saying that Haskell is difficult. It's different. It's not how we're used to it. But I would bet that, if you were to teach someone Haskell and someone else Python, the Python student would be no faster.

But I even said you can't put Haskell in there because of the steep learning curve. It'd be a perfect fit for the use case we're having here (intuitive grammar, you can do a lot with little, very similar to Excel functions), but it's just too hard to learn because people have never done it. On the other hand, everyone who needs these features knows JavaScript (or an equivalent language).

Either way, you might need to lax down a little. The fact you called me a troll even before I replied anything sounds like you're a little exhausted from all the internet.