REDMOND, WA – New programming language will revolutionize business application development
OK, yeah, that’s not a real story. I just made it up, sorry 
But imagine how perceptions would change if it were true, and instead of being an Office app, Excel were to morph into a professional development tool. Maybe we’d call it Business.NET or something like that instead of XL#. A flexible programming environment for codifying business rules, crunching raw data, and visualizing results. With a rich Windows client runtime library as well as a webserver runtime for processing and rendering on beefy, rack-mounted server farms.
That would be pretty cool wouldn’t it? Excel gurus could transition from their Excel environments over to Visual Studio without missing a beat, and suddenly they’d be given new job titles like “Lead Business Logic Developer,” “Senior Analytics Programmer,” or “Rapid Modeling Engineer.”
In their new roles, they might be re-org’d into IT. But they’d retain a very close affinity with the business units themselves – no matter who they reported to, they’d sit on the boundary between IT and the business unit, serving as both diplomat and translator between those two worlds.
And the apps those folks produced would be regarded as very different animals than they are today. No longer would they labor to produce mere documents. They would be producing business applications. And given that increased gravity, everyone, including this new class of developers, would treat these applications in a more disciplined manner. They wouldn’t just be anonymous files living in shared folders or inboxes somewhere, ready to cause trouble when an external change breaks their assumptions and disrupts the business operations.
Of course, the punchline is, most everything above is already true, except for the human perceptions.
Excel files are NOT documents! They are applications!
![et_hiding_thumb[1]](http://www.powerpivotpro.com/Users/Rob/AppData/Local/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter1286139640/supfiles1A5EBDC/et_hiding[3].jpg "et_hiding_thumb[1]")
Pop Quiz for IT: Can you spot the critical business app?
Yeah, I know. Excel is part of the MS Office suite, just like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. So clearly, Excel files are just document content, just like those other applications, right?
Nope. Excel is a development tool. And no, I don’t mean “if you use VBA.” The sheets are data structures. Cell addresses are variable names. Formulas are the core programming language. Things like relative reference and formula filldown are the iterative constructs. Charts and Pivots are data-bound controls. Excel.exe is both the programming environment as well as the runtime. (And now Excel Services serves those roles on the web).
(In fact, when I worked on Excel, one of the exercises we used to run through was to compare Excel to other programming platforms, and use those other platforms’ features as inspiration for new spreadsheet features.)
Excel has certainly benefited from being an Office application, so don’t get me wrong. It would not be remotely as widely-adopted as it is today had it been marketed as a dev tool rather than as an Office app. But I do want to point out that there as a side effect of being an Office app, the world’s most popular programming tool is perceived incorrectly. It does not produce documents, it produces applications… and then those applications get treated with the same informality that documents do. Like an alien hiding amongst the stuffed animals in Drew Barrymore’s closet.
“OK Rob, I get it. What’s your point though?”
I’m still thinking my way through this, but I’m pretty sure it is leading me somewhere worth going.
So far, I’m basically thinking that the most successful PowerPivot deployments will involve a new cultural view of the Excel professional. A view that is at least very similar to the “what if” exercise I played out at the top of this post.
This line of thinking is also in some ways a “sequel” post to the “I” in “BI”, Part Three post.
What does everyone else think? Are perceptions malleable enough for us to get there?
And credit where credit is due: Dick Moffat was the inspiration for this post. If you want to hear someone rail (quite convincingly) about the improper respect given to Excel applications and programmers, look him up on Skype or drop him a line on his blog.
Or even better, drop in at Tony Packo’s next time we get together, like we did this week with Mr. Excel. Good times, good food, and even better conversation
XL#. LOL! And all I dream of is VSTA/LINQ support in Excel.
“So far, I’m basically thinking that the most successful PowerPivot deployments will involve a new cultural view of the Excel professional.”
A new cultural view of the Analysis Services professional might be closer to the truth. As you’ve no doubt noticed, those folks have highjacked the product:) What’s good about this situation is that we will see many Analysis Services style solutions in PowerPivot from a perspective that Excel professionals don’t have, but can steal…er, learn from.
Colin – I’m not sure what you mean by AS Pro’s having hijacked the product. I know that the AS Pro’s are the first to have heard of it and so are doing the most talking at the moment.
But six months from now I expect a much different mix of authors playing with it – heavier on Excel pros. It would be very hard for a thousand people to hold sway over an audience of millions
“but can steal…er, learn from.” Can extend (?)
I see PP as a potential “wedge” for Excel and for Office 2010. In fact the combination of PowerPivot in both the client and in SharePoint and also of Access 2010′s new SharePoint story. What I want t find out next time I’m connected up to SP 2010 is whether PowerPivot can connect to the new Access tables (or to SharePoint lists) …. I don;t think so – but that has to happen IMHO.
Thanx for the nice comments about my “railing”. I tend to call it “ranting” actually
. I think we all need to stand up more for what we do and what we bekieve are the real strenghts of these technologies. After 25 years promoting spreadsheets I am really glad to have Rob on my side – and we’ll accept anybody who also wants to help.
Dick
“What I want t find out next time I’m connected up to SP 2010 is whether PowerPivot can connect to the new Access tables (or to SharePoint lists) …. I don;t think so – but that has to happen IMHO”
Not sure what you mean by new Access tables (new in Access 2010?), but in SharePoint, Access tables can be published as SharePoint lists. In SharePoint 2010, lists can be exported as an Atom feed. Therefore, using From Data Feeds–>From Other Feeds in the PowerPivot window, you can import SharePoint 2010 lists.
[...] the original post: Microsoft Unveils New Programming Language: XL# « PowerPivotPro By pivot | category: pivot, pivot data | tags: core, core-programming, formula-filldown, [...]
I haven’t seen that part of PowerPivot but it sound slike it should work. In Access 2010 the tables created by Access Services are actually SharePoint Lists so this may be the way. I am not sure about Access 2010′s Web-Based queries though. I expect there will have to be some work done on that. I’ll check it out in the next week.
Dick
BTW, I don’t understand why PowerPivot doesn’t explicitly list SharePoint lists as a data feed as it does for Reporting Services. It’s not as if a SharePoint list is a generic data source.
I tend to agree. I’ll pass the suggestion along Colin.
Nice one. XL#
. Excel does seem to be getting more exciting.
Great article.
Interesting post.
I’d like to think that now Microsoft is positioning Excel as the front end of their BI solution (with SharePoint, PowerPivot etc.) it, and Excel professionals, will be taken more seriously.
Hopefully the job you describe will become reality in the near future, I’m definitely up for it
I think that is very much happening. But it’s at least partly up to Excel professionals to help change perceptions. We have to earn our spot at the “grown-ups table.” If we get the proper engagement from IT, excellent. But we also have to live up to that and build spreadsheets that are more robust – at times we will still be tempted to do something “quick and dirty” that will break down the line. We need to be part of the solution and instead work proactively to make a more robust solution possible (by engaging IT on the problem).
If either side – the Excel pros or the IT folks – doesn’t bring the proper amount of proactivity and good faith to the table, then likely we’ll be right back where we started.
[...] might be different if they were viewed as applications programmers, as I explained in my post Microsoft Announces New Programming Language – XL#. And PowerPivot itself is hopefully poised to start changing the landscape as [...]
Cool – Shame that couldn’t have waited till 1st April!
[...] Go back and read this post for a clearer idea of what I’m talking about. I absolutely believe we are headed for a world like that. [...]
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