Greeting one and all. How it going?
Lately I have been reading a book about Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as applied to Microsoft Excel.
I use Excel a lot in my job. In fact one of the main reasons I have my job (and one of the main reasons I was hired for my previous job) is that I am good with Excel. Very few people seem to have more that a very basic knowledge of Excel. This really surprises me because it is a pretty much fundamental tool in the modern workplace and one would have thought that in the 21st Century everyone would be able to use such fundamental software.
However, from what I have seen, most new recruits to the office workplace havent had occasion to use it much in their pre-office life and hence can do little more than input data; they generally cant write formulae, create graphs or pivot tables etc. Most of the management Ive met in the office workplace dont seem to be able to use Excel either. They have never bothered to learn how to use Excel properly because, from their point of view, they are busy people and they dont see it as their job to mess around with spreadsheets (they are far too important for that). They see it as being the job of their employees to learn how to use Excel and come up with flashy reports for them to wave around at meetings. The management arent interested in raw data. They dont have the time to read through reams of facts and figures. They want someone who can wade through the data and understand what the data is saying and then summarise that for them in a simple and accessible manner. However the management in most offices dont want to pay to train anyone to the necessary level of competence in Excel (the same goes for other basic business applications most people can use Microsoft Word to type out a letter but I have met very few people who know how to run a mail merge), so they try to recruit people who already have these skills.
All of this is greatly to my advantage. People seem to think that I am an expert with Excel but when it comes down to it I can hardly regard myself to be an expert if I dont know how to write VBA.
Visual Basic doesn't seem too complicated at the moment. Ive not previously done any computer programming in a professional capacity but I recognise some of the features from when I was in my teens writing programs for my home computer in BASIC such as the For...Next loop, etc.
When I was very small my dad decided to quit his lucrative job working for Aramco in Saudi Arabia to come back to Britain and start his own mini-skip business (working in Saudi Arabia, my dad worked on a rota where hed be in Saudi for 2 months and then on leave in Britain for 2 weeks and then back in Saudi for 2 months or something like that, but when he got remarried he wanted to be able to spend time with his new wife and hence he quite his job and started his own business). His mini skip business was a failure and he lost a lot of money and had to sell one of his houses and take out a mortgage on the other but thats another story. When setting up his mini skip business, my dad decided that he needed a computer so he bought a Sinclair ZX81 (lol rofl, I kid you not). However, my dad couldnt figure out to use it so he ended up giving it to me. I mostly played games on it (ah, the joys of 1K computer games) but I also used it to learn about computer programming. Not having learned his lesson with the ZX81, my dad subsequently bought a Commodore +4, which he also ended up giving to me.
These days, now that we all have snazzy PCs, a lot of people mock the home computers of the 1980s but one good thing about them was that they provided people with an easy introduction to computer programming. Both of my dads home computers came with a little computer-programming manual which I had fun working through. Not long after that I did a GCSE in Computer Studies and as coursework I wrote a stock control database on the school BBC computers (the program was meant to allow levels of stock in an imaginary supermarket to be monitored the idea was that each time items were bought, the program would amend the record of the stock level and then when the stock level got down to a particular threshold, the program would flag it up as needing reordering).
However, all of this was only really a hobby and after a while I stopped. My interest was drawn by other things and its been a decade or more since Ive written a computer program. Lately, Ive been thinking that it would be interesting to learn how to program. Obviously, the kind of programming I did in my teens wasnt real programming as such. It was done using a language that was only intended as an easy introductory language. It would be interesting to learn how to program in a language that actually has some practical relevance to my life in the world of work my adult life. As such VBA is an obvious choice.
However, I am making comparatively slow progress with my VBA book. Its hard for me to concentrate on reading anything when I get up at 4:30 am everyday (see my previous journal entry re my new life as a commuter). I keep finding that having read a page of the book I have no idea what it was about. The issue is not that the subject matter is complicated because, frankly VBA is not complicated; the problem is that you cant learn about VBA by reading the manual as if you were reading a novel. It requires greater concentration than that. This is especially so since, to understand what the author is talking about you need to be able to visualise what the sample bits of VBA program will do when used in a spreadsheet. This is easy to do if you are sitting at a PC trying it out but if you are sitting on a train trying to figure it out in your head you really do need to be able to concentrate.
Ok I could just get a laptop but I am not going to buy a laptop just so that I can learn VBA on the train (especially since prior to getting on the train I spend 45-60 mins walking from my house to the train station. I want to keep my luggage down to a minimum as I have to carry my work clothes, shoes, packed lunch etc and I could do without carrying any extra baggage.
Its all very well understanding about subroutines and loops and variables etc but if you don't concentrate you have no idea what the particular program in front of you is suppose to be doing. It will all make more sense once I actually start writing VBA.
I did do an experiment the other day. I went on the web and found a site with Excel help and found a bit about how to create a form which a spreadsheet user could use to facilitate data entry. Having read the code and the accompanying explanation, I opened up Excel on my PC, went in the Visual Basic editor and designed a very simple form and macro so that a user could just go into the spreadsheet and click on a button and the form would open up ready to use. Once I have read more of the book I will have a more serious play with VBA in Excel to see what I can do. I need to think about what applications it could have to my ay to day life at work. I need to think about the things for which I currently use Excel and which of these things could be made easier or improved using VBA.
Unfortunately, there are many other books which I want to read right now and so, although I am supposed to be reading about VBA, some of the time I actually read about other stuff. Naughty, naughty. Hee hee!
Lately I have been reading a book about Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as applied to Microsoft Excel.
I use Excel a lot in my job. In fact one of the main reasons I have my job (and one of the main reasons I was hired for my previous job) is that I am good with Excel. Very few people seem to have more that a very basic knowledge of Excel. This really surprises me because it is a pretty much fundamental tool in the modern workplace and one would have thought that in the 21st Century everyone would be able to use such fundamental software.
However, from what I have seen, most new recruits to the office workplace havent had occasion to use it much in their pre-office life and hence can do little more than input data; they generally cant write formulae, create graphs or pivot tables etc. Most of the management Ive met in the office workplace dont seem to be able to use Excel either. They have never bothered to learn how to use Excel properly because, from their point of view, they are busy people and they dont see it as their job to mess around with spreadsheets (they are far too important for that). They see it as being the job of their employees to learn how to use Excel and come up with flashy reports for them to wave around at meetings. The management arent interested in raw data. They dont have the time to read through reams of facts and figures. They want someone who can wade through the data and understand what the data is saying and then summarise that for them in a simple and accessible manner. However the management in most offices dont want to pay to train anyone to the necessary level of competence in Excel (the same goes for other basic business applications most people can use Microsoft Word to type out a letter but I have met very few people who know how to run a mail merge), so they try to recruit people who already have these skills.
All of this is greatly to my advantage. People seem to think that I am an expert with Excel but when it comes down to it I can hardly regard myself to be an expert if I dont know how to write VBA.
Visual Basic doesn't seem too complicated at the moment. Ive not previously done any computer programming in a professional capacity but I recognise some of the features from when I was in my teens writing programs for my home computer in BASIC such as the For...Next loop, etc.
When I was very small my dad decided to quit his lucrative job working for Aramco in Saudi Arabia to come back to Britain and start his own mini-skip business (working in Saudi Arabia, my dad worked on a rota where hed be in Saudi for 2 months and then on leave in Britain for 2 weeks and then back in Saudi for 2 months or something like that, but when he got remarried he wanted to be able to spend time with his new wife and hence he quite his job and started his own business). His mini skip business was a failure and he lost a lot of money and had to sell one of his houses and take out a mortgage on the other but thats another story. When setting up his mini skip business, my dad decided that he needed a computer so he bought a Sinclair ZX81 (lol rofl, I kid you not). However, my dad couldnt figure out to use it so he ended up giving it to me. I mostly played games on it (ah, the joys of 1K computer games) but I also used it to learn about computer programming. Not having learned his lesson with the ZX81, my dad subsequently bought a Commodore +4, which he also ended up giving to me.
These days, now that we all have snazzy PCs, a lot of people mock the home computers of the 1980s but one good thing about them was that they provided people with an easy introduction to computer programming. Both of my dads home computers came with a little computer-programming manual which I had fun working through. Not long after that I did a GCSE in Computer Studies and as coursework I wrote a stock control database on the school BBC computers (the program was meant to allow levels of stock in an imaginary supermarket to be monitored the idea was that each time items were bought, the program would amend the record of the stock level and then when the stock level got down to a particular threshold, the program would flag it up as needing reordering).
However, all of this was only really a hobby and after a while I stopped. My interest was drawn by other things and its been a decade or more since Ive written a computer program. Lately, Ive been thinking that it would be interesting to learn how to program. Obviously, the kind of programming I did in my teens wasnt real programming as such. It was done using a language that was only intended as an easy introductory language. It would be interesting to learn how to program in a language that actually has some practical relevance to my life in the world of work my adult life. As such VBA is an obvious choice.
However, I am making comparatively slow progress with my VBA book. Its hard for me to concentrate on reading anything when I get up at 4:30 am everyday (see my previous journal entry re my new life as a commuter). I keep finding that having read a page of the book I have no idea what it was about. The issue is not that the subject matter is complicated because, frankly VBA is not complicated; the problem is that you cant learn about VBA by reading the manual as if you were reading a novel. It requires greater concentration than that. This is especially so since, to understand what the author is talking about you need to be able to visualise what the sample bits of VBA program will do when used in a spreadsheet. This is easy to do if you are sitting at a PC trying it out but if you are sitting on a train trying to figure it out in your head you really do need to be able to concentrate.
Ok I could just get a laptop but I am not going to buy a laptop just so that I can learn VBA on the train (especially since prior to getting on the train I spend 45-60 mins walking from my house to the train station. I want to keep my luggage down to a minimum as I have to carry my work clothes, shoes, packed lunch etc and I could do without carrying any extra baggage.
Its all very well understanding about subroutines and loops and variables etc but if you don't concentrate you have no idea what the particular program in front of you is suppose to be doing. It will all make more sense once I actually start writing VBA.
I did do an experiment the other day. I went on the web and found a site with Excel help and found a bit about how to create a form which a spreadsheet user could use to facilitate data entry. Having read the code and the accompanying explanation, I opened up Excel on my PC, went in the Visual Basic editor and designed a very simple form and macro so that a user could just go into the spreadsheet and click on a button and the form would open up ready to use. Once I have read more of the book I will have a more serious play with VBA in Excel to see what I can do. I need to think about what applications it could have to my ay to day life at work. I need to think about the things for which I currently use Excel and which of these things could be made easier or improved using VBA.
Unfortunately, there are many other books which I want to read right now and so, although I am supposed to be reading about VBA, some of the time I actually read about other stuff. Naughty, naughty. Hee hee!
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
Always appreciated!
Love,
--Kikou
Finally got desks. Still no board.