In case people aren't aware - you can use any language with COM bindings to script Excel/Word/PowerPoint/Adobe/etc from outside the application.<p>Python has pywin32. Usually I have a python prompt and Excel open side by side and highlight cells I'd like to modify in Excel and then switch to Python to run the appropriate functions.<p>The COM API can be used interactively (attach to an existing instance or launch the GUI) or automatically (launch an Excel instance but turn off visibility).
This could be one of those things that definitely grabs developers attention in a good way. I disagree it needs to be for all Office apps - if it was just Excel and Access that would be plenty.
I honestly feel that Lua would be a better fit, since the Lua table maps pretty nicely to Excel cells... but I'm sure there's some reason that it would unsuitable?