Digital Financial Reporting

I don't really know python, but I hear a lot of really good things about it. I do know a lot about Excel. But, it seems that combining these things would be incredibly useful:

• Arelle: An open source XBRL processor built using python.
• IronSpread: A way to use python within Excel.
• Python-Excel: Other stuff related to getting things into and out of Excel using python.

This I absolutely agree with: "learn to code".  You don't need to learn to be a programmer, just learn to code.  Huge difference.

Introduction to Python video

Parsing XBRL with Python

I have fiddled around with programming my entire career.  I started with Lotus 1-2-3 macros, rBase which is a relational database, moved to Excel when it still used the old macro language, really jumped into Excel when it moved to VBA, jumped into programming even more when Microsoft Access which was released (started with macros, but then switched to VBA), and even fiddled with Visual Basic .Net.  I like VB.Net and wish Excel and Access would switch from VBA to .Net; not sure if that will ever happen.

Along the way I learned SQL, HTML, HTTP, XML, XSLT, regular expressions, ASP, CSS, RDF/OWL, XSL-FO, XQuery, XML Schema, and other odds and ends to varying degrees.  It is a hobby which fits nicely into the accounting work I do. And yeah...I learned a bit about XBRL also!

Programming is fun, but I would not want to do it for a living.