Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the about-time dept.

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. What could possibly go wrong? by khandom08 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....

    1. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by bobstreo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The worst?

        With the tight security model Microsoft (and intel) always holds, combined with the track record of Javascript, they sky is the limit!

  2. This will be used for mining by xack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the first “apps” for this will be yet another cryptocurrency miner that will be spread around an organization’s spreadsheets.

  3. Re:Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is a huge group of computer-using professionals that live and breathe Excel.

    They are not programmers. But they do have script-kiddie level of competence, which they use for making Excel formulas and macros.

    These people are in love with Excel, and when they submit requirements for actual software development, they adamantly insist that the software accept Excel documents as input, and that everything the program does be controlled by Excel.

    This creates terrible inefficiency, gobbles up memory, slows the system down, injects an endless stream of bugs and support issues, and lets utterly unqualified people inject code into complex systems with little-to-no insight as to what-all is going to break because of it. But if you try to convince them to allow you to implement some of that logic in a proper coding language, they flatly refuse.

    So, of all the programming languages that are common in the industry, which one is most likely to be one that this class of user has encountered, tampered with, and prefers?

    Of course javascript. One of the Internet's oldest mistakes, and one of the worlds most sloppy and dangerous tools, will be put into the hands of non-programmer power-users to use right in the center of complex mission-critical systems that directly impact things like....oh I dunno....large sums of money moving around.

    The world is run by the wrong people.