Microsoft Excel has been the go-to spreadsheet app for many organizations for the past decades. Microsoft, for one, had kept up with user-demands as well. Thus, Excel has become a reputation system instead of yet another element in the Microsoft Office suite. Taking things further, Microsoft recently announced that Microsoft Excel is Turing-complete.
Excel is Turing-complete: What does that mean?
It’s because Excel is now powered by LAMBDA, a new programming language that addresses the shortcomings Excel’s formula system had in the past. LAMBDA is innovative because customers don’t have to rely on JavaScript or other coding languages to define custom functions.
Microsoft Excel is now Turing Complete because the programming system within Excel has become more powerful and scalable. This upgrade is mainly thanks to the addition of LAMBDA, which allows users to reuse formulas and code, among other features. Excel being Turing Complete translates to the increased performance in automating the Excel experience.
More so, LAMBDA addresses some of the common issues users have had with using complex formulas in the Excel programming language. First, complex formulas posed widespread edits during instances of bad code or error in logic. Similarly, a limit to which a custom function can be stretched. LAMBDA solves both problems.
LAMBDA introduces innovative features like Recursion and different data types to the Excel language that users are already familiar with. Recursion deals with avoiding loops and other complexities while making an Excel document with a massive amount of data inside. Excel also offers support for an extended list of data types.
Such data types can multiply the possibilities users have with the Excel programming language. Microsoft is happy with the support LAMBDA has received from the community and adds that the future updates will be based on the feedback options.
Sources say that Microsoft will soon bring support for nestable arrays and array-processing combinators. In an ideal environment, these features can save hours that users may otherwise spend trying to customize an available function.
Now that Excel programming is Turing Complete and has the power to compete with the likes of JavaScript, users can take Excel documents to a level never seen before.
