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Why do people still use VBA?

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Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#51

Post by dartos »

vbezhenar wrote: post #48
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 don't understand how's Excel page with macros inside different from random exe file from security perspective? Does Excel have some kind of excellent sandbox implementation, so it's safe to run random macros on the work machine?

Can you call os level functions from an excel macro?

Can you access raw memory from it?

If the answer to either of those is no, then that’s a big difference.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#52

Post by jgtrosh »

djbusby wrote: post #19
kibwen wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

Entire apps in shell can be very good, eg: gnu pass Exception, not the rule.

password-store does have some strong merits stemming from its Bash implementation, but from having followed its newsletter for a few years (and made a few changes in a fork) it also brought its fair share of bugs and weirdness.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#53

Post by meibo »

donatj wrote: post #50
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.

This. My friend automated his whole job in Excel. He supposedly can do a days work in fifteen minutes and then just hang out. Their computers are super locked down, can’t install anything, can’t go to any non-whitelisted sites, but they have Excel.

That was pretty much my first job, I strongly believe this still happens every day around the planet :) I wouldn't want to go back to that 30kloc of VBA though!

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#54

Post by asdfman123 »

donatj wrote: post #50
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.

This. My friend automated his whole job in Excel. He supposedly can do a days work in fifteen minutes and then just hang out. Their computers are super locked down, can’t install anything, can’t go to any non-whitelisted sites, but they have Excel.

This sounds like a very specific, personalized version of hell

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#55

Post by meibo »

dartos wrote: post #51
vbezhenar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how's Excel page with macros inside different from random exe file from security perspective? Does Excel have some kind of excellent sandbox implementation, so it's safe to run random macros on the work machine?

Can you call os level functions from an excel macro? Can you access raw memory from it? If the answer to either of those is no, then that’s a big difference.

You can call any native or COM function from VBA, the only real limitation is that it's strictly single-threaded(-ish).

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#56

Post by asdfman123 »

michaelteter wrote: post #41

VB(A) is like Python. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. (* if you think it's pretty, it's because you are inexperienced and don't know the many better alternatives *) Any tool with a good ecosystem (tools/libraries/integrations) which allows you to get real work done is useful. Visual Basic as a desktop app development system (or MS Access which added DB benefits) was very useful in a large number of scenari…

Future civilizations will marvel at the intricate grandeur of our Excel spreadsheets

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#57

Post by nradov »

dartos wrote: post #51
vbezhenar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how's Excel page with macros inside different from random exe file from security perspective? Does Excel have some kind of excellent sandbox implementation, so it's safe to run random macros on the work machine?

Can you call os level functions from an excel macro? Can you access raw memory from it? If the answer to either of those is no, then that’s a big difference.

You can call Windows API functions from VBA.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#58

Post by wiseowise »

donatj wrote: post #50
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.

This. My friend automated his whole job in Excel. He supposedly can do a days work in fifteen minutes and then just hang out. Their computers are super locked down, can’t install anything, can’t go to any non-whitelisted sites, but they have Excel.

I always read those “X automated their job, finishes it 15 minutes and then does whatever” and wonder how true are they? How could it be that nobody notices or cares?

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#59

Post by asdfman123 »

The article linked within the article, "Your Organization Probably Doesn't Want To Improve Things," is interesting because I know *exactly* what the author's problem is.

The problem is they're an intelligent person falling short of their potential.

As understandable as it is, raging against people around you for their shortcomings isn't going to help you or them. You've got to do the hard and scary work of grinding your way up to get to where you belong.

Re: Why do people still use VBA?

#60

Post by technion »

donatj wrote: post #50
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.

This. My friend automated his whole job in Excel. He supposedly can do a days work in fifteen minutes and then just hang out. Their computers are super locked down, can’t install anything, can’t go to any non-whitelisted sites, but they have Excel.

It feels contradictory to talk about these super locked down environments when "lock down Excel macros" in my view comes first if you're trying to secure an environment. I deal with before dealing with local administrator access such is the prevalence of it being exploited.
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