[AccessD] OT: Excel (was: Friday easy reading)

[Gustav Brock]

Hi Darryl

Thanks for the tip. I had forgotten about the Excel-L list because I normally stay off Excel, but for this project the client insisted.

A major challenge was, that it should operate in Excel Online (of Office 365), thus no VBA could be used; everything had to be formulas.
I soon realised that this would be impossible to maintain in a traditional fashion, so I use VBA to create the entire workbook and worksheets from scratch including all formatting and formulas.

You soon meet two challenges. 

First, most code you can look up is - as you probably know - is "half-baked" and mostly user oriented using ActiveSheet and Selection, and the documentation lacks often examples, so you are much on your own. 

Second, the very bad thing about the formulas is that, when reaching some complexity, they tend to be write-only (a label I have seen put on Perl as well). Further, editing is limited to edit one formula by the time in a small textbox. This means that you need some kind of "generator" to create and maintain such formulas to give you the option to explain and adjust what is going on.
 
On top of this, formulas in the user interface are localised, turning debugging into a nightmare.
 
Thus, where the formulas were intended to be easy and/or simple, you end up having the formulas as a write-only low-level language which only can be maintained using a higher-level language.
The opposite world.
 
/gustav

________________________________________
Fra: AccessD <accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com> på vegne af Darryl Collins <darryl at whittleconsulting.com.au>
Sendt: 12. august 2017 05:23
Til: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Emne: Re: [AccessD] OT: Friday easy reading

Thanks for the book link Gustav,

On a side note, I am mostly an Excel programmer so if you need any help with that, feel free to email me via here or offlist.

I would recommend the Excel-L list (which is similar to this setup) if you want 24/7 MVP level help.

Cheers
Darryl.

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Friday, 11 August 2017 11:12 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: [AccessD] OT: Friday easy reading

Hi all

Currently, I program an Excel workbook, and - as those of you who have tried that know - it will drive you crazy.
So, the thoughts are flying, and I decided to do something else for a moment and bring a promotion:

I know some of you have or know grandchildren of low age.
My niece, a gifted artist working mostly with 2D animations, has published a book at Amazon:

   Charlie and the White Dragon
    http://a.co/hiJKec6

I don't buy books of this kind, so I can't judge it compared to similar books, but I love her drawings which have a special "atmosphere" in lack of better words.

/gustav