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Why do people still use VBA?

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Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#141

Post by TeMPOraL »

j-a-a-p wrote: post #139
menotyou wrote: post #109

Let's face it: IT is the bureaucracy department of modern times which can keep itself 95% busy with self inflicted problems and has 5% service orientation. Processes are opaque for outsiders and typically not helpful. I really had to lough when I read the following description of the IBM BPM but this sums up a good part of the issue: "...while IBM BPM does come with a REST API, this REST API is borderline useless to…

VBA is the ultimate agile programming language. The company's IT aka Bureaucracy Department is stuck with Scrum, Squads and what not. And meanwhile in the other departments people are just getting things done with Excel/VBA. Nothing has changed. In the last century this also happened and it was called islands of automation. In my bubble back then it was considered a good strategy, let departments first play around, a…

> In my bubble back then it was considered a good strategy, let departments first play around, and if they are on to something integrate it.

Funny how with computerized process, IT departments are effectively central planners. The lowly workers get to only do what the IT secretariat allows. It is this way because national^Wcorporate security!

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#142

Post by TeMPOraL »

toolslive wrote: post #82
throwaway154 wrote: post #2

Corps have a dev environment sitting right in Excel that doesn't need special (management, management's management, adding to a registrar of projects, budgeting or project manager assigned, etc) approval for non-stock software. The stack's Excel, plus Sharepoint if you're really looking for a networked data store that also has a web interface. From that end-user direction, solutions emerge. And they're in VBA.

I've seen the following at least twice: some department manager (marketeers typically have a nack for this) needs something, can't or won't bother the development team and starts off with "how difficult can it be" and before you know it they've written a few hundred lines of VBA, which serves their needs. But then, the next phase starts: that scripts gets copied over (because Jim wanted to run it too) and modified (J…

Yes. And the entire thing is done in half the time it would take for the development team's managers to get through whatever bullshit agile scrum epoch meetings to ultimately deny the request because it's not worth their time - or worse, approve the request, and get you waiting a year for The Project Done Right.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#143

Post by RugnirViking »

masteruvpuppetz wrote: post #44

I've been developing VBA macros since 20 years. It's largely the same language as it was when I first started. I've made lots of automations with VBA but nowadays, I've almost fully moved to UiPath RPA. I think RPA is very underrated and it should be used in place of VBA for complex automations like button clicks, data entry, scrapping, etc.

interesting, looks promising. ive made both vba and python automated scripts for button clicks etc in other software in the past, could come in handy in future I imagine to have a more dedicated setup. Is UIpath free?

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#144

Post by RugnirViking »

Arch485 wrote: post #30
Valgrim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are entire VBA projects really that ubiquitous? As far as I can see, there are really two category of those: first are the huge proprietary plugins from large B2B companies that serve as a way to deeply integrate their products into Excel Spreadsheets, and the second are more like extremely customized tools built by the enthusiastic tinkerer of a non-technical team to make a complex and repetitive task easier. If the…

"There's this one guy who doesn't really know how to program, but he made some software that benefits the company. This software is now so complex the original creator is in way over his head, but continues to work on the software anyways, and it'a a huge mess" is category 3. I've seen it happen multiple times.

the thing is, for the most part this is straight up good. sure it has bugs and stuff like that, but its solving a real need. Bringing more value to the buisness than almost anything else for its cost

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#145

Post by sanitycheck »

j-a-a-p wrote: post #139
menotyou wrote: post #109

Let's face it: IT is the bureaucracy department of modern times which can keep itself 95% busy with self inflicted problems and has 5% service orientation. Processes are opaque for outsiders and typically not helpful. I really had to lough when I read the following description of the IBM BPM but this sums up a good part of the issue: "...while IBM BPM does come with a REST API, this REST API is borderline useless to…

VBA is the ultimate agile programming language. The company's IT aka Bureaucracy Department is stuck with Scrum, Squads and what not. And meanwhile in the other departments people are just getting things done with Excel/VBA. Nothing has changed. In the last century this also happened and it was called islands of automation. In my bubble back then it was considered a good strategy, let departments first play around, a…

I was talking about this with a friend the other week... I think what IT depts really need to do is let people go crazy with Excel/VBA, but write a script to monitor activity on xls files on the network over the long term.

If there's an xls which has been in regular use for more than 18 months, and it contains macros, then it can be assumed it performs some important role and should be properly documented and checked and could also be rewritten in a "real" language and officially supported. Set up a meeting with whoever made it, and whoever's touched it most. Approach it more like "we're improving your cool thing" than "we're taking away your toys".

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#146

Post by TeMPOraL »

orthoxerox wrote: post #119
13of40 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows ships with VBScript, JScript, CMD, C#, and PowerShell right out of the box. I recall interviewing a college guy around 2018, and he tried to educate me about how Windows doesn't have a good command line / scripting / automation solution beyond command.com. I think I still said "hire" because he had other talents, but damn.

Windows doesn't ship with C# out of the box. It ships with the runtime for .NET Framework 4.8, but not with the SDK.

As I understand it, PowerShell allows you, out of the box, to write some C# code in a string, and then run it. And by C# code I mean regular classes with all the bells and whistles.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#147

Post by turkishlurker »

I've been in manufacturing for ~13 years across 5 different organizations. There'll inevitably come up a spreadsheet use case where you'll have to execute a well defined series of steps on a recurring basis (and some of these steps may not be possible using the built-in functionality alone). Which is where VBA comes in. I've sometimes wondered what I would do in the absence of VBA and come to the conclusion that

a) I'd be forced to complete a painstaking task "manually", and likely committing the occasional error in the process, not to mention all the time I'd have "wasted"

b) In the case of "optional" tasks (whatever that may mean) I'd have had to give up on whatever functionality/feature VBA enables and some level of detail/sophistication/speed would thereby be lost.

To get a bit more concrete in terms of use cases, any spreadsheet task involving a bill of materials or having to do with stock management is probably ripe for some VBA enhancement. I am aware that it is looked down upon by some, but advising against VBA in favor of Python or some other "proper" tool that calls for an IDE is a bit like telling someone who wants to take up home cooking to get a fancy Japanese chef's knife set plus a sharpener instead of the good old all-purpose knife he is certain to have lying around.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#148

Post by TeMPOraL »

uxp8u61q wrote: post #66

Because there was no good alternative until recently. The future is with the new "add-ins" model: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/overvie... Say what you will about typescript, but at least it's better than VBA. My main issue is that unlike VBA, I can't program it from right there in Excel. Sometimes I don't want to start up a full-fledged add-in project that's meant to be reused. I just want to…

> My main issue is that unlike VBA, I can't program it from right there in Excel.

Yeah, that's pretty much a deal-breaker. On top of the obvious thing: can "add-ins" be installed by unprivileged users, without involving the IT department? Can they be embedded in the spreadsheets? A "no" to the former is a real deal-breaker, but a "no" to the latter also hurts adoption. Nice thing about Macros and VBA is that, security settings notwithstanding, every instance of Excel is capable of running them out-of-the-box, without making the user install anything extra.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#150

Post by execveat »

dmurray wrote: post #125
menotyou wrote: post #109

Let's face it: IT is the bureaucracy department of modern times which can keep itself 95% busy with self inflicted problems and has 5% service orientation. Processes are opaque for outsiders and typically not helpful. I really had to lough when I read the following description of the IBM BPM but this sums up a good part of the issue: "...while IBM BPM does come with a REST API, this REST API is borderline useless to…

There's a sentence in the article which says that this is an explicit policy decision of the company. > It is supposedly “Against the technology strategic vision of the company” to allow “end-users” access to high level programming languages.

At this point you should just leave this dumpster fire of an organization and find a more reasonable place to work. I can't relate to the people who keep inventing atrocious workarounds ignoring the problem that they work in a hostile work environment.

I work in security and can't relate to banning Python & replacing it with Microsoft crap either.

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