Introducing the LAMBDA function
Before the advent of LAMBDA, creating custom worksheet functions in Excel required writing programming code, such as with Visual Basic for Applications in Excel or by using other languages to create add-ins for Excel. You'll be relieved, and perhaps even amazed, to know that, you don’t need any programming experience to use LAMBDA. The ability to write formulas in Excel and an understanding of defining Names are all that you need to create custom worksheet functions with LAMBDA.
Tip
JavaScript-based worksheet functions can be created in Microsoft 365, Excel 2021, and Excel for Web.
LAMBDA functions can get wildly complex as you can create recursive formulas where a LAMBDA function refers to itself more than once, akin to a circular reference, as discussed in Chapter 9, Excel Quirks and Nuances. I do not have space to dive deep into LAMBDA, which means I won’t create any recursive formulas, but I can give you a running start...