{"id":41093,"date":"2023-11-16T15:39:26","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T20:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=41093"},"modified":"2023-11-20T14:34:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T19:34:02","slug":"why-do-people-still-use-vba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/16\/why-do-people-still-use-vba\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do People Still Use VBA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sancarn<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

From these data, we can clearly see that the majority of people who use VBA do so mainly because they have no other choice. Many organisations run their entire business processes with Excel, and when a little bit of automation is required VBA is usually #1 on the list.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Looks like the only automation platforms which can connect to all the data sources we need is VBA and Powershell. Power BI Desktop has been introduced in our business but doesn’t hit all the platforms which VBA does, and even if it did Power BI cannot be used for process automation where-as VBA can, so what’s the point making the switch? Users who do use Power BI to target these other datasets usually generate CSVs of this other data and store these in cloud sharepoint system, but what generates those CSVs? VBA.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Now, we’d love to use a higher level language in our organisation to handle this business automation. However, every request for a high level language to be installed across the team\/business e.g. Python \/ Ruby \/ Node \/ Rust etc. has been rejected by CyberSecurity in favour of technologies like PowerAutomate, PowerApps which as you can see above barely touch any of the data we need. It is supposedly “Against the technology strategic vision of the company” to allow “end-users” access to high level programming languages.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

clausok<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I’ve been surprised to see many pro devs using Excel\/VBA as a secondary tool.<\/p>

One example: a couple years ago I was working with a big hedge fund and one of their data analysts sent me an Excel model he had built and I was tickled to see the .xlsm extension (i.e., VBA code on board).<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

He said something that stuck with me, “Excel makes it easy to understand the dependency structure that is implied by computations. If I had done this in Python, I’d be answering questions about it all day long.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2023-11-20): randmbits<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I used to be a VBA wizard and it was because it was the only thing the org didn’t regulate away. It took forever to get approval to use it too. We had a party when they eventually allowed us to use SQL.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sancarn (via Hacker News): From these data, we can clearly see that the majority of people who use VBA do so mainly because they have no other choice. Many organisations run their entire business processes with Excel, and when a little bit of automation is required VBA is usually #1 on the list. […] Looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-16T20:39:31Z","apple_news_api_id":"52788f74-8153-4067-bc99-b917343096c3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-20T19:34:05Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AUniPdIFTQGe8mbkXNDCWww","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[609,71,1329,219],"class_list":["post-41093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-microsoft-excel","tag-programming","tag-visual-basic-for-applications-vba","tag-windows"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41121,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41093\/revisions\/41121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}