Hacker News: fzumstein

New comment by fzumstein in "DuckDB 1.5.2 – SQL database that runs on laptop, server, in the browser"

fzumstein — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:04:07 +0000

DuckDB also runs in Excel, by the way, via the free xlwings Lite add-in that you can install from the add-in store. It’s using the Python package and allows to write scripts, custom functions, as well as use a Jupyter-like notebook workflow.

New comment by fzumstein in "Pyodide: a Python distribution based on WebAssembly"

fzumstein — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 06:46:54 +0000

Pyodide powers xlwings Lite, a free Excel add-in that you can install from Excel’s add-in store with a single click. It outperforms Microsoft’s official Python in Excel solution in every coceivable way: price, privacy, speed, can install packages, can access the internet, can access local files, doesn’t have a usage quota, can automate Excel and create native UDFs. See https://lite.xlwings.org

New comment by fzumstein in "Please just try HTMX"

fzumstein — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:38:10 +0000

Have you tried the CSP build of AlpineJS? It takes the code out of the template into a proper JS file, no unsafe-eval. Isn't state management mostly handled on the backend when you use AlpineJS?

New comment by fzumstein in "Xlwings Lite – Python in Excel Using Pyodide"

fzumstein — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 08:40:33 +0000

I am not a random user, but the creator. The dependencies are managed via standard requirements.txt file, which is stored in the Excel workbook itself. When you open xlwings Lite with the workbook, the dependencies are installed from either PyPI or Pyodide's own repository (after the first download from the browser's cache).

Direct db queries are indeed a restriction of Wasm/Pyodide, but there are more and more databases offering a HTTP layer. For example, Supabase has this built-in via PostgREST. For Oracle, there is Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS). Ultimately, you can also build your own little proxy server, although that's a little bit more work, but might still be worth it for company-internal use.

New comment by fzumstein in "Xlwings Lite – Python in Excel Using Pyodide"

fzumstein — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 08:29:39 +0000

No, this is for Excel only, but it does work with the free online version of Excel. I think LibreOffice has support for Python via PyOO.

Xlwings Lite: A free, local alternative to Python in Excel with no usage quota

fzumstein — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:28:21 +0000

Article URL: https://lite.xlwings.org

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43492077

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by fzumstein in "SQLookup"

fzumstein — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 11:03:03 +0000

SQLookup is an Excel add-in that gives you access to the SQLOOKUP function. The SQLOOKUP function allows you to query data in your Excel workbook using SQL (SQLite dialect). The add-in is free and works with Excel on Windows, macOS, and web. It can be installed via the add-in store.

SQLookup

fzumstein — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 11:03:03 +0000

Article URL: https://sqlookup.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42470068

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by fzumstein in "GitHub Copilot is now available for free"

fzumstein — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 19:23:30 +0000

So basically it’s free for 1 day per month (I only use chat).

New comment by fzumstein in "Python in Excel – Available Now"

fzumstein — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 21:08:39 +0000

It's exactly why I built xlwings, to replace VBA with Python. Python in Excel instead is a competitor to the Excel formula language.

New comment by fzumstein in "My thoughts on Python in Excel"

fzumstein — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 14:35:51 +0000

No offense taken, and happy that xlwings was an inspiration for creating Row Zero! I don't really buy the security issues though for being the reason for switching from Excel to Row Zero. Yes, Excel has security issues, but so does the cloud, but at least the issues with Excel can be dealt with: disable VBA macros on a company level, run Excel on airgapped computers, etc. Promising that your cloud won't be hacked or is unintentionally leaking information is impossible, no matter how much auditing and certification you're going through. The relatively recent addition of xlwings Server fixes pretty much all of the issues you encountered in your previous company: user don't need a local installation of Python, but the Office admin just pushes an Office.js add-in to them and their done. No sensitive credentials etc. are required to be stored on the end-users computer or spreadsheet either as you can take advantage of SSO and can manage user roles on Microsoft Entra ID (that companies are using already anyways).

New comment by fzumstein in "My thoughts on Python in Excel"

fzumstein — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:23:03 +0000

As the author of said second class add-in, let me just guess that your most popular feature request was adding the "Import from xlsx" functionality...which describes the whole issue: it's always Excel + something, never something instead of Excel.

New comment by fzumstein in "My thoughts on Python in Excel"

fzumstein — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:15:44 +0000

xlwings is a competitor to VBA rather than openpyxl: openpyxl can read and write the Excel file on disk, without involving the Excel application. xlwings is all about automating the Excel application, and write macros and custom functions in Python.

New comment by fzumstein in "My thoughts on Python in Excel"

fzumstein — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 09:36:04 +0000

Hi all, I am Felix, the author of the post. I just wanted to reiterate that this post was mainly meant as a summary of my GitHub issues I opened with them. So it should really be seen as a feedback to help them improve the product. Python in Excel currently covers a completely different use-case than xlwings, but Python in Excel inspired me to finally look into WASM and PyScript, which is an awesome product.

My thoughts on Python in Excel

fzumstein — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 09:19:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.xlwings.org/blog/my-thoughts-on-python-in-excel

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40656125

Points: 288

# Comments: 118

New comment by fzumstein in "Ask HN: Share Your YoutTube Channel"

fzumstein — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 20:06:06 +0000

It's been 10 years. But upload videos very irregularly.

New comment by fzumstein in "Ask HN: Share Your YoutTube Channel"

fzumstein — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 17:30:08 +0000

My most obscure video is about programming VBA in VS Code. Other than that, I focus on Python for Excel (no "Python in Excel"): https://www.youtube.com/@xlwings9689

New comment by fzumstein in "Htmx and the Rule of Least Power"

fzumstein — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 07:54:26 +0000

For the Python/Jinja world, there is Jinja2-fragments that allows you to return blocks of the template without having to extract it to partials. I am sure there are similar solutions for other template languages. See https://github.com/sponsfreixes/jinja2-fragments.

New comment by fzumstein in "Augmenting the Markdown Language for Great Python Graphical Interfaces"

fzumstein — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 12:33:07 +0000

Never heard of it either. "Build and share delightful machine learning apps, all in Python." I am wondering what the heck is so special about "machine learning apps" that would differentiate them from any other app that has a UI with a Python backend.

New comment by fzumstein in "Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel"

fzumstein — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 22:24:51 +0000

Totally agree on the part of the add-in: Just give us a dead-simple method to load the manifest locally and be done with it!