Journal of a Bookworm 📖

[Jas]

VBA is not the same as it was.

I've heard many state it isn't useful to know. But VBA is a valuable programming language to know. It's pretty much available to be used on every PC. So getting it or being able to use it somewhere is easy. You don't need anything new except what most computers already have.

I use SQL all the time. In fact I prefer to use SQL where SQL will do the job instead of programming. A combination of the two is obviously the best. If go with efficiency in a lot of cases SQL is faster and more accurate. But there are things only programming languages can do or does better, mostly not though when it comes to utilizing data.

I learned VBA in the Navy and still find it useful at work to this day.

I learned SQL on the job here and rarely use it. Seriously, look into python with sqlalchemy if you have not already. You just read from a database and you have objects containing all the data and backreferences you want, which you can pipe into scipy or pandas and export data manipulations via graphs with matplotlib.

I may be misonterpreting but it sounds like you're pidgeonholing yourself a bit.

Just because what you've done for years still works doesn't mean there is not a better way to do it today.

[Tanya]

Perhaps your right. I'll look into Python. Still SQL is quite useful.

[Jas]

It is useful, and it's true that there are boundary cases that an abstraction such as sqlalchemy will not account for.

But the should be far from the norm, and for the most part just having a Cron job run a python script that generates literally all your data (even maybe rope in some TeX for full report generation) and then your job becomes focusing on trend analysis, etc., without having to mire yourself in the minutia.

I may have taken a few liberties with what I assume your job entails, and I'm sure there's more to it than just this. But small optimizations can be made everywhere to maintain quality of life and let you use your brain where it matters.

[Tanya]

I'm always working on optimizations.

No one else does what I do, where I work. So I'm open to suggestions for sure.

[Tanya]

I get sent a project

I gather the information

Make the plan

Design it

Make it

Test it

Implement it

Correct any issues not found

I wouldn't say any of them were major projects, major for just one person to complete, sure.

[Smileymaniak]

Yeah SQL is the main language I use day to day, thank god for rollback <3

VBA is fun, only get to use it a little in CRM packages n such when making alterations, a lot of things are going web based though so have to do a bit more Javascript here and there than I used to.

C# is what our development team use so get a bit of exposure to that too, mostly looking for bugs cus nothing is ever documented so I have to search through their god awful solutions to find out what the error I just received means.

[Tanya]

documentation is really important even if it's just for your own notes. Sorry to hear that Rimuru, that'd be such a pain to deal with.

[Jas]

It's true.

And even when you aren't officially documenting something, it's best to take enough notes so that you can, if asked to do so.

[Teeny]

I like your new avatar
I didn't know avatars could be GIFs

[Momogari]

VBA is fun

Vba is terrible. Its convenient and powerful only because its in excel. Its one of the worst documented languages I know and excel doesn't provide anything approaching an ide for it so its awful to work in.

Maybe there's a vs plugin that makes it less frustrating idk.

Its one of those legacy dinosaurs that ain't been broke ain't been fixed aint been touched. I guess there's no money in making excel nicer when the money is in shit like power bi and power automate and the people who need vba--which is honestly still a lot of people--can just use stackoverflow and rely on the specialists that have to use it every day and know it already.

[Smileymaniak]

I rarely use it in Excel. Mostly use it when making customisations in CRM software so it's just like any other code in that respect. Once you know the syntax it's easy days. Write the functions, throw in a bit of SQL here and there when you need it to return data, job done.

Only time I've ever used it in Excel is for data links and breaking open some old password protected workbooks that everyone had forgotten the passwords to haha.

[Tanya]

I use VBA primarily for ACCESS

[Jas]

My main use has been Excel, which is where I learned it.

And you're not completely wrong: most people only use VBA because it's attached to MS products. It's not really all that useful in Word (a little, sure, but not nearly as useful as Excel), and I acknowledge it's more useful even in something like Access.

But saying that VBA is terrible because Excel doesn't give a good IDE is not the best argument. Perhaps there is an argument that VBA should have a better IDE, sure, but it is a perfectly useable, functional language. If you really want big data processing and you're willing to cover the overhead, nothing binds you to VBA. There is literally nothing that it can do that something else cannot, except for integration into MS products. Tie in a TeX backend with Matlab or Matplotlib data viz tools and you aren't dependent on it anymore.

But if you want the conveniences that excel, access, etc. afford you, VBA is a necessary thing, and it's actually pretty easy syntax. And the VBA editor does give some keyword hinting, etc, even if it doesn't give a full blown IDE.

You also mention the docs and, while I am not writing home about them, I've never had trouble navigating them. I'm entirely self-taught using the VBA docs and as such I don't see a problem with them. I am curious what your specific beef is with those though.

There are way worse (and worse-documented) languages.

[Smileymaniak]

I was trying to learn to program a while back but got distracted by too many other things.
I can get the syntax down pretty quickly when I see a new language, which is why I can understand our developers projects, but finding my own projects to work on is hard.

It's difficult to explain but I think the simplest way I can put it is that there is almost too much information out there on programming.
I get overwhelmed and it becomes very hard to determine which information is relevant.
I know the basic principals like encapsulation, polymorphism, etc. etc. but it's hard to find ways of putting them into practice.
Following a tutorial is one thing but it's like tracing over a piece of art, just because you can do it doesn't make you an artist and without finding a way to use those principals in projects of my own I don't feel like I'm going to really understand them and make any progress.

[Jas]

Yeah I think I understand where you're coming from.

Object performed features like polymorphism and encapsulation are well and good to know and "trace", as you say, but until you really understand them it's hard to figure out how to use them.

I understand that, and I generally agree about tutorials.

For anything, really. Not just programming.

(that said, I do understand those features if you wanted to discuss them sometime)