If you are in a locked down corporate dragnet. You want to write some code, automate something or compute something.
VBA may be what you have available to you.
Why do people still use VBA?
111–120 of 421 posts
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#112Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
PowerShell including ISE, with tabs, multi-line cursor, syntax highlighting, autocomplete, step-through debugger, snippets, scriptable/extensible.
People think I am nuts for preferring the ISE over VSCode, but the ISE never crashes while running scripts!
You're not, I would also rather have the Powershell team improve ISE than their decision to migrate into VSCode, but alas.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#114If you are in a locked down corporate dragnet. You want to write some code, automate something or compute something. VBA may be what you have available to you.
Also at this point, probably everything that can be done in VBA has been done already, so there is definitely a code snippet out there on a forum somewhere for whatever it is you are trying to do.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#115Why do Linux/Unix/Mac developers write shell scripts, when there are so many better languages out there? A large part is it integrates well with the shell and it is ubiquitous. VBA is basically the scripting language of Office. It integrates well with Microsoft Office, and in a business environment, pretty much everyone has access to it. Are there better languages? Sure. However, it is hard to beat the integration an…
The difference here is that Linux devs would get rightly chided for building entire applications in shell scripts. The existence a "glue language" isn't a bad thing, rather, it's a good thing. But when you wake up to find that your whole project is made of 100% glue, you might consider that a bit of a mess.
A few years ago I ported a UNIX log processing application into Java, that was basically a bunch of Korn shell scripts born in AIX, doing all sorts of data fetching, log processing and uploading of results into other severs, scattered around a couple of scripts and UNIX tools.
It was a bit of a mess indeed, however as the author of the Java port, I would assess the Korn shell scripts were still much better approach, despite the mess.
Reason for the port? Whoever was taking charge of the application wasn't confortable with UNIX and decided having it done in Java was easier for having random external consulting companies develop it further.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference here is that Linux devs would get rightly chided for building entire applications in shell scripts. The existence a "glue language" isn't a bad thing, rather, it's a good thing. But when you wake up to find that your whole project is made of 100% glue, you might consider that a bit of a mess.
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…
>Are entire VBA projects really that ubiquitous?
We have such sights to show you.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started my career like this, with a boring job where I inherited a gigantic excel with a few macros. Every day I had to download via ftp millions of logs from high speed trains from all over france (the logs themselves were retrieved manually via a serial cable on each train by maintenance guys every few days). I would then run a few macros that would do a bunch of geoloc calculation, spit out results in 2 tables,…
Nice story! Curious, was the manager a technical person e.g. a former engineer?
Yep absolutely he was a technical manager.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#118Let'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…
So the answer is:
Because it is the only programming language Corporate can’t choose not to install.
The wonders of ‘Enterprise’, it amazes me when people bring it up as if it’s any kind of advantage or excuse.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly why I use it. Only dev environment available to me.
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.
Re: Why do people still use VBA?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started my career like this, with a boring job where I inherited a gigantic excel with a few macros. Every day I had to download via ftp millions of logs from high speed trains from all over france (the logs themselves were retrieved manually via a serial cable on each train by maintenance guys every few days). I would then run a few macros that would do a bunch of geoloc calculation, spit out results in 2 tables,…
Seeing the environment (SNCF contractor, I guess), kudos to your manager, they really went the extra mile with you and it's not what usually happens at all!
Yup, after 10 years I had to quit because of the too-low pay, but I am super grateful because I wouldn't be where I am today if they hadn't bet on me like that !