A spreadsheet with python numpy formulas
What would you think of a spreadsheet where you can use python numpy and scipy formulas?
For the graph, I was thinking of matplotlib and seaborn or maybe plotly I don’t really know.
Why I got this idea : a lot of people know how to use a spreadsheet and sometimes you need a formula that doesn't exist or you need to work directly on an array. For example, a colleague of mine wanted to do an interpolation of values and without coding it in VBA in Excel, you can't do it easily in a spreadsheet but in python it is very fast as there is a numpy function for that.
So I thought of making an online spreadsheet like google sheets but where you can use numpy and the result is written directly in cells just like any spreadsheet.
Would people use that?
Do you think there is a market for this idea?
FPagerie,
I believe there is a market for plugins that works seamlessly within Excel (as some type of plugin). The smart fill feature in current versions of excel are a perfect example of this.
Said differently, I think that if you used C# with Excel to take in an array of cells and to return a regression (or intepolation or whatever) then that could be something. The user however should need zero knowledge of numpy or anything for that matter.
Bottom line - for this to work, there needs to be a lot of clever design to hide the numpy details.
Hi @ralphbrooks,
Thanks for your comment.
In Excel, if you want to sum some values in cells B2 to B7 for example, you write ‘’=SUM(B2:B7)’’, I was thinking of something similar but with numpy function like ‘’=np.sum(B2:B7)’’ so I think it won’t be too complicated to use.
But you are right on the fact that I would need to hide all the technical details