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Why do people still use VBA?

sancarn.github.io

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Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#401

Post by sancarn »

clausok wrote: post #379
sancarn wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VBA does have it's issues ( https://sancarn.github.io/vba-articles/issues-with-vba.html ) but it's far from the worst tool out there... E.G. PowerAutomate VB6 has a pretty big community, and https://twinbasic.com/ has really helped unify VBA and VB6 communities as of late. So it might have a little of a resergence in the dev community.

I'm always stunned to see the level of VB6 expertise that remains in the world even two decades after Microsoft left it for dead. Just look at the effort and knowhow that went into this VBA function that resolves the local file system path from the https url of workbooks synced to OneDrive/SharePoint: https://gist.github.com/guwidoe/038398b6be1b16c458365716a921...

Certainly! If you're ever interested in seeing some awesome VBA stuff I have a big list here: https://github.com/sancarn/awesome-vba

Lots of awesome stuff still in the VBA/VB6 community!

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#402

Post by replwoacause »

account-5 wrote: post #104

No choice. I've learn VBA and Powershell only because they are the only things I have access to at work that allows the computer to work for me rather than the other way round. In the past I've run autohotkey portably to automate corporate systems that seem designed to maximize the number of clicks to get anything done, and for "glueing" systems that don't speak together. I'll learn anything that makes my life easier…

I love PowerShell, it’s a fantastic language.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#403

Post by 7thaccount »

rainonmoon wrote: post #366
usrbinbash wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real answer is "ok, that is a bad idea for XYZ reasons, what problem are you trying to solve? That's the answer that I give immediately after the "No." Look, I get what you are saying. I am not trying to keep people away from the capabilities they need to improve how the whole show works. The problem is, what people in my business "guard" are often complex, critical systems, which themselves don't always meet t…

Speaking as someone in offensive security, you and people like you are the reason companies don't get completely ruined when the inevitable happens. Principled IT is often overlooked but the biggest factor in my experience. Thank you for taking your responsibility to your customers seriously. I'm honestly astounded at how many people in this thread resent IT so much, but it certainly makes my engagements easier.

I don't think anyone on here honestly hates or even truly resents good IT doing hard work and trying to keep the systems safe in good faith. Everyone knows it's a thankless job and that some frustrations will exist. I don't expect every single IT person to approve everything I need immediately. Things like cybersecurity are obviously important.

They're talking about those that play all the management games and add little if any value. Those that have a title like Senior Developer who can't write basic code. Those that can't understand the basics of their jobs and can't support the systems they're supposed to. Sure they might make the overall company more secure as a result of their behavior, but it's a byproduct and not the intent. It makes being a business SME a living hell as there is always so much friction to just doing anything on your computer. We're probably all venting a bit collectively.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#404

Post by ropable »

pillefitz wrote: post #336
usrbinbash wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are giving a service for the rest of the company That is very true. And part of that service is to ensure that things run smoothly, securely and according to industry standards. How well would an IT guy provide that service if he were to let some unvetted, undocumented script hacked together by someone who isn't a professional software engineer, run its merry way across the production database?

Don't give access to a DB, the same way you wouldn't give access to any other external system. Instead you ask what is needed and provide a restricted REST API. You come off as condescending and remind me of why I (ex dev who joined our business department) dislike our IT so much and do my best to encourage shadow IT where I can, while keeping sane best practices around CI/CD, security and testing. I'm so fed up seei…

I, on the other hand, am tired of being called in to investigate why the janky Excel macro written four years ago by an ex-employee doesn't work for all the external stakeholders this manager just sent the spreadsheet to, only to find that the hardcoded database and local admin user creds in the VBA script are now leaked and in the clear.

A lot of people pushing shadow IT "solutions" wildly overestimate their own ability, while maintaining garbage-tier information security standards. That doesn't sound like you, but it's the far more common situation those of us in "IT" are forced to protect the wider organisation against.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#405

Post by mcbishop »

sancarn wrote: post #391
mcbishop wrote: post #38

VBA is a lovely language, that supports object-oriented programming (with composition... no inheritance). It has deep access to and control of Excel. It's mature and stable (Microsoft is no longer significantly changing it). "Real programmers" hate on it largely because of all the amateur spaghetti VBA code written by the business people (that the programmers are occasionally asked to debug).

I have invested copious amounts of time into building VBA libraries ( https://github.com/sancarn/stdVBA ) and as much as I love vba there are some highly limiting actual problems with VBA ( https://sancarn.github.io/vba-articles/issues-with-vba.html ) which really hurt the language. But yes a large portion of the hate VBA gets is from the state of VBA projects ( https://sancarn.github.io/vba-articles/why-is-vba-most-…

Thanks for your detailed write ups!

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#406

Post by account-5 »

replwoacause wrote: post #402
account-5 wrote: post #104

No choice. I've learn VBA and Powershell only because they are the only things I have access to at work that allows the computer to work for me rather than the other way round. In the past I've run autohotkey portably to automate corporate systems that seem designed to maximize the number of clicks to get anything done, and for "glueing" systems that don't speak together. I'll learn anything that makes my life easier…

I love PowerShell, it’s a fantastic language.

I agree, it's massively undervalued. Sure the syntax isn't for everyone but out of the box it has much of the stuff in it that on Linux I'd be reaching for awk, jq, etc. Not to mention being able to pull in stuff from .net and other windows things. I can't fault it.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#407

Post by j-a-a-p »

jampekka wrote: post #269
specialist wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very optimistic about Project Jupyter style notebooks. I believe, without any evidence, that they have much greater potential thoughout IT, devops, whatever. Example: Imagine a CI/CD pipelines using notebooks. I hate Jenkins/Hudson style build systems so much I could just spit. I just want to run a shell script. (Alas, I haven't had the gumption to try this idea out yet. Soon.)

Jupyter style notebooks are already becoming the next VBA in some fields. And this is not a good thing.

I guess that some developers requirements are orthogonal to those of citizen developers. For example version control could be a must have for us, but for others a layer of complexity that is just waiting to stand in the way of getting things done.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#408

Post by TeMPOraL »

jojobas wrote: post #373
ethbr1 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We decided that the water/electricity utility doesn't get to control how you use the amount you consume. Modern IT is more like if your water utility had final say over which faucet you installed and how you used it.

You can use as much water/power as the pipes/wires allow through, but you don't get to have petrol pipes, beer pipes or milkshake pipes laid to your property, neither you get to choose 160V DC or 430V 400Hz electricity, however useful all of these things are.

> but you don't get to have petrol pipes, beer pipes or milkshake pipes laid to your property, neither you get to choose 160V DC or 430V 400Hz electricity

Sure you can have all of these. They're just not offered as part of normal utilities. Nobody will care if you build yourself some, except maybe for petrol pipes due to fire/explosion risk.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#409

Post by jojobas »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #408
jojobas wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use as much water/power as the pipes/wires allow through, but you don't get to have petrol pipes, beer pipes or milkshake pipes laid to your property, neither you get to choose 160V DC or 430V 400Hz electricity, however useful all of these things are.

> but you don't get to have petrol pipes, beer pipes or milkshake pipes laid to your property, neither you get to choose 160V DC or 430V 400Hz electricity Sure you can have all of these. They're just not offered as part of normal utilities. Nobody will care if you build yourself some, except maybe for petrol pipes due to fire/explosion risk.

Good luck getting you council to approve buried pipes from a brewery even 100m down the road. Within the confines of your parcel - maybe, so enjoy your Visual Builder for (beer) Aficionados.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#410

Post by kabes »

liotier wrote: post #123
baz00 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth also pointing out that sometimes when you're in a corporate dystopian hell hole do not expect to be able to actually request or install software on your device. What is there is what you have and trying to get it changed is an exercise in taking on the bureaucracy. It's not worth it. Many people have tried and failed. Back in the dark ages, we had a horrible reporting engine in Word VBA that pulled report defin…

I suspect that dystopian environments of locked-down mandatory corporate Windows laptops with no software installation privileges, firewalled networking and even the USB ports disabled are also part of the reason for every function being crammed into the browser to the point that the browser has become an operating system host... Creativity (and catastrophes) happens where there is freedom: local scripting and browse…

You say creativity happens where there is freedom, but I often hear artists claim they work best when given constraints.
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