[AccessD] VBA question

Marty et al,

IIRC the original definition of a macro was "a set of instructions that
work together to perform some function."  Of course that was rather
vague since it depended on how you defined function.  A program came to
be defined as a series of calls to macros or functions.  Early compilers
had functions that were calls to macros written in assembly (or macro)
language since the early compilers were not good at optimizing code.  I
remember many examples where we would take the assembly language code
generated by the compiler and hand optimize it to speed up production
programs.

But all that is ancient history.  Since M$ uses the term Macro in their
Office products, we have to live with it whether we like it or not.

Charles Wortz
Software Development Division
Texas Education Agency
1701 N. Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701-1494
512-463-9493
CWortz at tea.state.tx.us



-----Original Message-----
From: MartyConnelly [mailto:martyconnelly at shaw.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday 2003 Apr 22 22:05
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [AccessD] VBA question

Most of the old assembler languages were known as macro assembly
languages One I used to use was GMAP (Honeywell Mainframe) General Macro
Assembler 
Program
There were Macros to write to a disk file. Only Dweebs ventured to write

that in machine code rather than assembler macro calls.
And then there is Macro Economics......

Bryan Carbonnell wrote:

>On 22 Apr 2003 at 21:02, Susan Harkins wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I know the word is a hold over from earlier Basic versions, but I 
>>wouldn't use the term macro to describe a VBA procedure, whether it's 
>>a sub or function -- is there something else in Word and Excel? I'm 
>>not familiar with the structure if there is.
>>    
>>
>
>None that I'm aware of.
>
>I try not to use macro, but when I use procedure to replace macro, I
>usually get back "What's a procedure?" Then as soon as I say a 
>procedure is a macro I get "AH. OK, why didn't you just say that in 
>the first place?"
>
>I think there are two differences.
>
>1) The word Macro has a negative connotation in programming circles.
>It has the implication that it's just not real programming. I'll 
>argue to the death that writing a macro in Word is programming. I 
>know, I've spent many an hour cursing at code.
>
>2) Coming from an Access background, macro has an even worse
>connotation because of the crap Access macros we have all seen and 
>tried to fix.
>
>  
>
>>I know the Excel expert at Cobb continued to use the term for eons 
>>after VBA and the VBE showed up. I argued with him on occasion. We 
>>produced a VBA product together and we had a lot of trouble trying to 
>>use consistent language. :)
>>    
>>
>
>CERT still uses the word Macro in their security bulletins when
>talking about things like IL*v*Y** and M*ll*ss* viruses (virii)
>
>Tell me those aren't programming extremes :-)
>
>--
>Bryan Carbonnell - carbonnb at sympatico.ca
>Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with the software.