microsoft excel and VBA for office

[Jackalope]

Is this all internal, intranet stuff? Cause I wouldn't use any of this in web.

^^^^^^^^^

[scoobysnack]

Yeah but aren't we all button pushing robots?

No, I'm the guy who writes software so other people can be button pushing robots.

As an aside, I have on many occasions bemoaned the jobs that have been lost in part due to the work I do.  This is why I drink.

That's what I want to go into. What languages do you know, or suggest working towards? I don't want to be one of the people who lose my job after making myself obsolete through my own automation haha, so I'm thinking of computer science instead.

[Jackalope]

Is this all internal, intranet stuff? Cause I wouldn't use any of this in web.

TBH, I wouldn't use any of this stuff for anything anyone else is going to have to support. The IT guys will eat your children.

[Jackalope]

No, I'm the guy who writes software so other people can be button pushing robots.

As an aside, I have on many occasions bemoaned the jobs that have been lost in part due to the work I do.  This is why I drink.

That's what I want to go into. What languages do you know, or suggest working towards? I don't want to be one of the people who lose my job after making myself obsolete through my own automation haha, so I'm thinking of computer science instead.

You want to avoid being outsource or rightsized? Stay outta technology.

Seriously. Do something that cant be automated or outsourced. If I knew how to do anything else I would - and that's coming from someone with 30+ years in tech.

I might just be jaded after seeing more friend and coworkers than I can count get outsourced or downsized. I stopped counting 15 years ago.

[scoobysnack]

Is this all internal, intranet stuff? Cause I wouldn't use any of this in web.

TBH, I wouldn't use any of this stuff for anything anyone else is going to have to support.  The IT guys will eat your children.

Macros are best used in my opinion for personal task automation, not company wide installation. I created a few macro worksheets to automate reports for my old department and save as read only files so they can be used each week as needed and still run a year later since I changed positions. However, yes, IT will not want to dive into development mode and try to dissect VBA code if something breaks.

Most of the stuff I create now is for my department to use, and always saved as read only, so no one can go in and screw something up for the next person.

[scoobysnack]

That's what I want to go into. What languages do you know, or suggest working towards? I don't want to be one of the people who lose my job after making myself obsolete through my own automation haha, so I'm thinking of computer science instead.

You want to avoid being outsource or rightsized? Stay outta technology.

Seriously.  Do something that cant be automated or outsourced.  If I knew how to do anything else I would - and that's coming from someone with 30+ years in tech.

I might just be jaded after seeing more friend and coworkers than I can count get outsourced or downsized.  I stopped counting 15 years ago.

Really? That's scary! I hear ya though things are changing so fast these days. Jobs are becoming obsolete quicker then people think. Read a story of the bank branch going away due to online banking just today. Even in tech, what you learn, will be obsolete in a few years as new techniques and languages are developed. I don't want to go back to school to pay for a full computer science degree, was just thinking of taking some online courses like code academy to learn some language.

What have you witnessed in the tech industry? Even in my company, which I wont disclose, is the one of the biggest companies in it's industry, just lost first place, but they are outsourcing IT out to WIPRO. So now we have all these people coming in with visas from India to work here, but rarely hire a citizen.

[SteelCurtain]

Meh. VBA is useful in an office environment. The most fun is making people's mouths drop when you turn an entire person's job into a succession of button clicks. Then you learn not to do that anymore, people get upset.

I prefer Access if I'm doing database management.

Access? Haha, this is an Oracle shop.

Kids these days.

Calm down. This thread was about VBA.[emoji14]

[Jackalope]

I'm too tired to tell stories right now, but suffice it to say that at my current position, I've survived at least a dozen major layoffs since 1999, major being deep deep cuts, 30% of total workforce or more.. Like I said, I stopped counting.

[scoobysnack]

I'm too tired to tell stories right now, but suffice it to say that at my current position,  I've survived at least a dozen major layoffs since 1999, major being deep deep cuts, 30% of total workforce or more..  Like I said, I stopped counting.

Well get some drinks in you, because I'd like to hear the inside info when you are willing.

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I use Excel and VB all the time, though I think it's a little bit antiquated now. Excel is very nice at lining things up, coloring and formating them, printing them, etc. and almost any programmer can make Excel do some cool stuff with just a couple hours on Google.

For most of the needs in my school, though, I've moved everything online: SQL database with an ASP webpage for the UI. Most data isn't 2-dimensional, so trying to do more than basic accounting or statistics with Excel is going to get burdensome pretty fast.