271–280 of 421 posts
– It’s built in. – The IDE is built in. – The syntax is beginner-friendly. – It’s stable and doesn’t change every six month. – It’s well-documented. – No build steps, it just runs, and fast. – It’s resource-efficient (CPU, RAM). – You can easily create dialogs and forms using the built-in visual GUI builder. – You can break into the built-in debugger from your Office document. – If you want to get fancy, it has inter…
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…
The Software People get called in when it becomes difficult to maintain the ad hoc solution.
– It’s built in. – The IDE is built in. – The syntax is beginner-friendly. – It’s stable and doesn’t change every six month. – It’s well-documented. – No build steps, it just runs, and fast. – It’s resource-efficient (CPU, RAM). – You can easily create dialogs and forms using the built-in visual GUI builder. – You can break into the built-in debugger from your Office document. – If you want to get fancy, it has inter…
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> 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!
It's not so much central planners deciding who can have what, but rather a natural monopoly. You don't want your water/electricity depend on a family-run shop that can just shut down, and neither you want your purchasing department to hinge on that guy from logistics who can just quit, leaving behind his magic incomprehensible spreadsheets.
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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…
You're actually on to a really important thing that IT depts misunderstand about Excel/VBA monstrosities. They exist because they work. You want UX or business analysis? You literally just got that done for you for free if you run into a Excel/VBA application. The hardest part of dev is figuring out requirements, so stop looking at these as toys and start realizing that shadow IT exists because of a gap in developmen…
Don't get so emotionally invested in tools because they're just tools at the end of the day.
The business doesn't care what tools are used so long as they do their job.
Also, knowing how to navigate a convoluted tooling systems ensures your job security, so why are you complaining again?
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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 wondering what would be replacing Excel/VBA after 3 decades as a citizen developer alternative. I could not think of something that even comes close. Any ideas?
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Shadow IT exists for a reason and that's the dysfunctional bureaucracy of IT. The "Circle of IT" is real. Small companies start out nimble, but then stuff gets crazy and someone decides to standardize it all under one department. This works for awhile, but eventually this organization becomes so useless that it can't serve any functions of the business anymore, so a shadow IT group is built that the business SMEs lov…
> the dysfunctional bureaucracy of IT I am not here to talk about management-bureaucracy, of which IT depts; same as all other branches one can find in established corporate culture, have more than enough. I am talking about the perceived "bureaucracy" of us tech guys here, aka. following established procedures to ensure smooth running of mission critical systems. Yes, I want things to run through code reviews. Why?…
If yes to the first, you’re a unicorn in an ocean of IT departments that do nothing but block.
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It might be niche for HN, but in muggle world its enormously popular.
Heh, muggle world is the niche, but that niche is arguably bigger than all of the dedicated software engineer niches.