Is this a late April Fools' joke? Your compiler for an esoteric programming language; "the design goal [for which] was to create a language which was difficult to compile"[1], is business-critical?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge

The goal is to reduce everything. Complexity is uncertainty, at some point we all throw up our hands and let the chips fall.

Every modern language compiles down to insane amounts of code. There is simply no way it's all correct, even at the compiler level. The legion of developers looking into it doesn't give me comfort either, because the size means it has to be partitioned at some point.

Competitive edges are essential in the modern information economy. This Bowling Alley succeeds or fails based on my own wits.

Not just business-critical, apparently it's a competitive advantage, such that he wants others to not be able to take advantage of it.

I mean, why not a relational database and some python or something instead of a custom program?

A lot my excel use cases are Pivot tables that connect directly to SSAS

excel is a client for the database, a very advanced client

Very true. Sometimes I think Microsoft really shoots themselves in the foot by not rapidly improving the performance of excel (GPU support would be killer). I really think many of the upstarts like Tableau would be completely sidelined by a higher performance excel with a few other features. I think to some degree the existence of PowerBI is basically Microsoft acknowledging they cannot iterate Excel fast enough to compete and thus need a fresh start. That said, I find it's one of the tools I miss the most when not on Windows.