[AccessD] Somewhat OT: Satya Nadella's memo. Starting FY15 - Bold Ambition & Our Core

Bill Benson bensonforums at gmail.com
Mon Jul 14 18:31:50 CDT 2014


I, well as usual, sorta agree, and also mildly disagree.

People who are very capable (perhaps not expert) in one typically are not
quite as capable in another. But to me that is done damage. Were MS to
create a unified object model from here on out, would you want to learn all
the differences? 

I have much more problem with stuff not working throughout the entire
history of a single application's object model; or breaking between
versions; or taking away (worse than deprecating) something I had come to
rely on, or which running code still relies on; or never fixing something
that ought simply to work better. For example, recently learning that
EVALUATE( ) [note:  Excel] does not work with more than 255 characters ...
although formulas on-sheet can be thousands of characters. Or that using
EVALUATE in conjunction with defined names embedded in the argumane leads
Excel to assume that the ActiveWorkbook is the one that contains the defined
name, rather than the workbook which is running the frigging EVALUATE code.
Or at least let me choose, for goodness sake. Or the fact that SUBTOTAL
begins to no longer nest the totals in proper row order once the number of
columns exceeds 30.

I do not have a problem with the development team for Word and Powerpoint
and Excel and Access being only moderately tied together, as all those
applications do VERY different things and I would expect it to be a lot to
ask an entire fleet of developers, what with all they are groomed for and
having to keep their eyes out for new and competing technology and multiple
platforms, and different sets of problems to identify and crack, across apps
- that to me is forgivable. But dammit, if you have had many years to fix
something, why the heck not fix it, that is unforgivable and beyond me. 



-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Darryl Collins
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 7:19 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Somewhat OT: Satya Nadella's memo. Starting FY15 -
Bold Ambition & Our Core

I strongly concur here with Mark.  Each individual Office app has it's own
quirks and inconsistencies with the object model and syntax.  It is clear
that they were designed and built by separate dev teams and didn't have a
clear and standard way of doing things.  Given the separate and organic
nature of the Office suite of apps in their early days this is both
understandable and forgivable.  Indeed they all had separate lives before
they got 'bundled' in the 'MS Office' branding/suite.

However, the primary reason I use and recommend MS Office over all the
'Office' style wannabees is solely down to the power of VBA to automate the
apps (both internally and between each other - say SQL Server to MS Access,
MS Access to Excel etc).  Without this ability I may as well save the cash
and use an inferior, but adequate and wholesomely cheaper alternative.  VBA
*IS* what adds the value to MS Office for me.

As you say, I can understand if VBA is not up to the task of cloud computing
requirement and security, but why not implement VB.NET or javascript or
something??

Cheers
Darryl.



-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mark Simms
Sent: Tuesday, 15 July 2014 6:23 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Somewhat OT: Satya Nadella's memo. Starting FY15 -
Bold Ambition & Our Core

What a load of B.S.: Talk's cheap.

I'd get a TON of STUFF DONE if the VBA object model and GUI Controls were
consistent across all components of the Office Platform. But they are not
and likely never will be.

And will they ever get the cloud versions automated ? I don't care if it's
Javascript or a whole new scripting language....JUST DO IT.




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