Learn Python, or learn to drive Copilot? A beginner's honest fork in the road
Two tabs open, four spare hours a week, and everyone insisting the other tab is a waste of your time - here's the no-hype version of the beginner's fork.
Code & Data
// 9 postsTutorials, tips, and deep dives on Code & Data — every post from bianca.codes tagged Code & Data.
Code & Data posts
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When did the spreadsheet quietly become a database - and why that's a problem
Nobody decided to build a database out of that 80-tab workbook - it ended up doing a database's job without any of a database's guarantees.
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Build a Monthly Report Card in a Single Python in Excel Cell
Python in Excel can't write a file, but it can turn a transaction table into a chart that lives in the workbook and never goes stale - in one =PY() cell.
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Python in Excel: When a Cell Stops Being a Number and Becomes a DataFrame
For forty years an Excel cell could hold one of four things, and Python in Excel quietly added a fifth: a whole pandas DataFrame, living inside a single cell.
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What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Working With Data in a Small Team
In a small team, you're the analyst, the engineer, the dashboard designer, and the person who explains what a p-value is at the all-hands.
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Python for Excel Users, Part 3: Merging Datasets and Replacing Your VLOOKUPs
VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP, but for files that don't fit in memory, joins on multiple keys, and many-to-many matches that VLOOKUP simply can't do.
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Python for Excel Users, Part 2: Grouping, Aggregating, and Replacing Your SUMIFS
SUMIFS and COUNTIFS are great — until your data has 500,000 rows and Excel is grinding. Part 2 shows how to do everything your SUMIFS does, but with pandas groupby — faster, more flexible, and on d…
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Python for Excel Users, Part 1: Reading and Filtering Your First Real Dataset
This isn't 'what is a variable' Python. This is: you have a CSV that's too big for Excel, you need it filtered by date and category, and you need the result saved as a clean file. Part 1 covers exa…
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Why 'Just Learn SQL' Is the Wrong Advice for Most Excel Users
The advice is everywhere: if you're serious about data, you need SQL. But for most analysts already working in Excel and Power BI, the gap isn't SQL knowledge - it's data modelling instinct. Here…