Slashdot Mirror


Microsoft Adds Support For JavaScript Functions in Excel (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: At the Build 2018 developer conference that's taking place these days in Seattle, USA, Microsoft announced support for custom JavaScript functions in Excel. What this means is that Excel users will be able to use JavaScript code to create a custom Excel formula that will appear in Excel's default formula database. Users will then be able to insert and call these formulas from within Excel spreadsheets, but have a JavaScript interpreter compute the spreadsheet data instead of Excel's native engine. "Office developers have been wanting to write JavaScript custom functions for many reasons," Microsoft says, "such as: (1) Calculate math operations, like whether a number is prime. (2) Bring information from the web, like a bank account balance. (3) Stream live data, like a stock price."

4 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. This is very very welcome...but... by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Informative

    Folks, I will have to say that this development is very welcome though what really saddens me is this: -

    There's no Open Source Excel alternative that comes even close to what Excel can do.

    To make matters worse, there's no [serious] effort to create anything capable.

    1. Re:This is very very welcome...but... by jandrese · · Score: 4, Informative

      Which Excel features are missing from Openoffice Calc that are a showstopper for you?

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:This is very very welcome...but... by guruevi · · Score: 4, Informative

      You must never have heard of SQL, Python, R, ...

      Try opening an Excel sheet with 15,000 lines and applying a filter... (I just got one of those in my Inbox - 2MB Excel sheet, takes 2 minutes to re-render any changes on an 8-core i7 (Excel: using 16 threads... 4%)

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  2. Re:No, not JavaScript! by jaa101 · · Score: 4, Informative

    have you ever tried doing 0.1 * 0.2 in JavaScript, the answer is 0.020000000000000004! Can you imagine how main spreadsheet errors this will cause?

    You appear to be ignorant of the way floating point numbers work. This is not a feature of JavaScript, but of the CPU in your computer. Try entering "=0.1*0.2" in an Excel cell and then turn up the format to 20 digits of precision. I'm not saying that JavaScript is good, but using this as your first example of how bad it is doesn't help your credibility.