# Off Topic > The Water Cooler >  >  Would like to know about the Forum Experts/Gurus

## ImranBhatti

Hello to all respected forum members

About every member of the forum with the title of 
a) Forum Expert
b) Forum Guru

And any member who does not have the title (due to new entry) but they are Experts/Gurus
I would love to know about you if you want to tell. Your replies will expedite so many.
1) How/whereWhen you learnt VBA? 
2) How you became Expert/Guru

Best Regards
Imran Bhatti

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## Doc.AElstein

Hi Imran
_1)  
*Mostly* from *participating In Excel Forums* I do learn VBA best

Also from some books and You Tube Videos. Here some are:
 http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...ml#post4272300
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...erials-11.html 


(    An ExcelForum Member, stanleydgromjr , keeps a list of learning material updated in a skicky at the top of the Thread list in the *Excel Programming / VBA / Macros Sub Forum* .
 http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...erials-11.html 
 But it is a bit large and overwhelming.. like VBA itself
  )

_2) I would not worry to much about these things. Concentrate for now on learning and when you are able  enjoy futher learning through helping others and by helping answering questions. ( Try to have some confidence that you can help in a question before replying too quikly ;) )
But here is the infomation on becoming Expert/Guru:
_2a)
Answer is in *Rules*
( You should always read the Rules, OK ?  :Smilie:   )
EFRules.jpg http://imgur.com/0ndgdtk
EFRules.JPG

Here read  ( Bottom of Page ): 
http://www.excelforum.com/forum-rule...rum-rules.html 
ForumRulesOK.jpg http://imgur.com/8MAu0xD 
ForumRulesOK.JPG


_2b) Also for Guru infomation
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...n-ef-guru.html
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...ml#post4507146 ( Also here is information on Reps. You do need them for Expert to be )

Alan


‘_-Some other Threads on this Topic
http://www.excelforum.com/tips-and-t...on-points.html
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...from-guru.html
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...-feedback.html
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...orum-guru.html

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## TMS

I have been using Excel for 20+ years.  I had used other spreadsheet applications before learning Excel, including Microsoft Works.  When I started out, I invested heavily in Excel and VBA books ... yes, physical books, most of which I've still got.  Obviously, before the days of Google and Excel Forums as they exist now.  Back then I asked questions on the boards ... these were generally prompted by the need to overcome problems I encountered in self imposed projects.

As time has passed, I have moved on from asking questions to answering them, although I still do ask the odd question when my research through Google fails.

I've been answering questions on this forum since 2010, hence I became a Guru, which was then recategorised as an Expert.  And then I was nominated to be a Forum Guru ... which I duly accepted.

I learn best from "worked examples".  So, if I can see something that nearly does what I want, I can try to understand how it works and adapt it to meet my needs.

Hope that helps.

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## ImranBhatti

> I have been using Excel for 20+ years.  I had used other spreadsheet applications before learning Excel, including Microsoft Works.  When I started out, I invested heavily in Excel and VBA books ... yes, physical books, most of which I've still got.  Obviously, before the days of Google and Excel Forums as they exist now.  Back then I asked questions on the boards ... these were generally prompted by the need to overcome problems I encountered in self imposed projects.



I don't know exactly when the first visicalc was introduced.Did you see that era too?

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## ImranBhatti

> As time has passed, I have moved on from asking questions to answering them
> 
> I've been answering questions on this forum since 2010, hence I became a Guru, which was then recategorised as an Expert.  And then I was nominated to be a Forum Guru ... which I duly accepted.



Long learning and teaching journey.Really inspiring.

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## TMS

I believe that VisCalc was released in 1978.  In those days, I was working for ICL developing and supporting applications ... and I didn't use spreadsheets at all.

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## TMS

> Long learning and teaching journey.Really inspiring.



Thank you, and thanks for the rep :Smilie:

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## ImranBhatti

> I invested heavily in Excel and VBA books ... yes, physical books, most of which I've still got.  Obviously, before the days of Google and Excel Forums as they exist now.



That was a hard time then.
I never thought of buying a book on Excel. Always tried to get one in PDF form.(like John Walkenbach,etc)

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## TMS

I do now have various manuals in .PDF format.  But, realistically, I rarely look at them now.  More often than not, I'l know how to do what I want, or I'll record a macro to get the basics, or I'll Google what I want to do, looking for examples.  Failing that, I'll ask on the forum.

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## AB33

> How you became Expert/Guru
> 
> Imran Bhatti



I am neither an expert nor a Guru in VBA or excel for that matter. These titles are given to some people who are VIP-members of a club (This site). 

IMO and opinion of may others, it takes at least a decade to become an "Expert" In any programing language. By the time you attain the "Expert" level, it is highly likely the world is speaking a brand new language. Microsoft has put all its odds on C# and slowly putting VB (of which VBA is an offshoot) in to legacy.

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## JBeaucaire

Been using Excel since it was first release in the 90s.
Everything I know about VBA I learned from answering questions here on the forum, built my chops one solution at a time.

Greatest skill was learning the proper way to structure effective Google searches.

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## TMS

@AB33: I read the question as in how are the titles earned in relation to the forum.

I've used several programming languages including Basic, QBasic, Algol, Fortran, RPG2, COBOL, System 25 Assembler and the odd Report Writer, like Crystal Reports, going back over four decades.  And I have been using Excel/VBA for over two decades.  That said, there are vast areas that I know little about.

And, to be fair, my knowledge of Excel relates primarily to "earlier" versions of Excel and I cannot profess to being efficient, let alone expert, in features introduced in Excel 2013 and later.  That said, I know the functions are there and I'm in a good position to research them if/when I need to.

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## AliGW

I joined the forum in late 2013 and my back history has been similar to Trevor's. I've been using Excel for pupil data tracking since the 1990s: my then Head of Department really got me interested in Excel to such an extent that we would vie to see who could come up with the better and more elegant formulaic result to a problem, so learnt from each other and the Internet as we went along. In my current role (I'm a Head of Department myself now and the school's official data analyst), I use Excel a lot in conjunction with our management information system software, and most of my challenges currently revolve around getting extracted data into the correct format to use in Power BI (which is my latest learning project). Oh, and I'm also delving into SQL at the moment, for similar reasons.

I rose to Expert status here in the usual way: post count and reputation points. Although I came here initially to ask questions, I soon found myself more and more able to give answers, and that's what I enjoy doing most. I have learnt such a lot here. I have only recently been invited and appointed to Moderator status, which I consider both an honour and a big responsibility.

My Achilles' heel is VBA: as regular members of these boards will know, that is a learning curve I still haven't begun to climb. Maybe in my retirement I will make it one of my projects.  :Smilie:

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## ImranBhatti

> Been using Excel since it was first release in the 90s.
> Everything I know about VBA I learned from answering questions here on the forum



Many of my user form queries I received a decisive code from you.

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## ImranBhatti

It is really a fun to use Excel for student's record too.My employer is also running a school and the students strength is 250 (I issue too many SLC's (School Leaving Certificates) and too many admission forms.
And by now I did not need a predefined database for the school.I try to find solutions with Excel and its really fun.

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## AliGW

We don't use Excel for pupil records: that is done using our MIS. Our school has 750 on roll and we maintain a lot of personal and academic data in the MIS. Excel is used for department and whole-school tracking sheets and for analysing the data in the MIS.

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## Doc.AElstein

> .My Achilles' heel is VBA: ..., that is a learning curve I still haven't begun to climb...



When I started a few years back I was not just an Excel novice, but also hardly new anything about computers..
So I started looking at  “spreadsheets” just to replace some hand written tables I was doing. 
I thought programming / VBA was another world   :EEK!:  ,     and steered clear.
After I got the basic Excel spreadsheet ideas sussed, I expanded what I was doing and had some massive sheets full of formulas. 
Now, I do most in VBA and am really frustrated and annoyed with myself that I did not  take the plunge earlier and learn VBA. For large Files and more complex data analysis it is so much better and, I find personally, a lot easier to understand than complex formulas. And as some people know and hate, I love to fill up the hidden bit of the code window to the right with long ‘Green comments, not only to amuse myself, but also to remember exactly what the code is doing at that point. To understand how a formula works that does what a fairly simple looping type code does needs pages of documentation to understand sometimes. And debugging or modifying is so much easier with a code that you can step through and see exactly where and what is going wrong.   

I also joined Forums to learn but soon got hooked ( afflicted ) with enjoying answering questions...
I mainly was  learning VBA, so was dead keen to explain to people how easy and useful VBA could be.
If I had the time again I would definitely  force myself into learning  at least basic VBA right at the start. 
*I would definitely strongly recommend anyone using Excel to think about having a quick look at VBA codes* . It is one of those time investments that almost always pays off if you are doing any large amount of work with Excel.

On the other hand, if you are doing lots of different data analysis on moderately sized Worksheets,  then you could probably do all without VBA, and there is nothing wrong with specialising in spreadsheet / formula stuff. Excel, even without VBA,  is more than big enough to consume a career in computing I should think.

But one last point. All Functions you use in Excel are just based on pre written VBA codes that kick in when you Hit Enter , or when the Worksheet is refreshed. So you are actually “doing” VBA often anyway. One thing you can do in VBA is write your own Functions. 
Type then
 = Alans( x , y ) 
in a cell,  and then in a code you predefine what that does. I use those “User defined Functions” (UDF’s) less myself. 
I prefer using a code I simply run when I need it
or
I write the codes that spring in automatically when you do something like type in a value in a cell. 

Alan

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## ImranBhatti

Since most of the learning nowadays is through the web.We find a lot of stuff online.But cannot determine where to start.

What should be the sequence of learning Excel VBA?
Or we should learn what comes in our real life Excel problems
In short if there is a book to be written on Excel VBA what would be the sequence of the Chapters therein?

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## AliGW

Imran - *please don't quote whole posts - it's just clutter.* If you are responding to a post out of sequence, limit quoted content to a few relevant lines that makes clear to whom and what you are responding

For normal conversational replies, try using the QUICK REPLY box below.

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## TMS

I find it easier to learn if I have a task to achieve.  In fact, I struggle to learn simply for the sake of it.

I would look at any regular, or repetitive, tasks that you undertake and see if you can automate them.  I often start a large project by looking at the steps that I undertake to complete the end to end task.  I then code and test each step as a standalone module and when they are all working as expected, string them together with a "control" or "main" module that calls each of the sub-modules in sequence.  It may be necessary to define and set status flags to pass between the modules so that, if an error occurs, the control module can close down in an orderly fashion.

Coding each module will generate questions and issues which can be overcome one by one.  And this is all part of the learning process.

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## ImranBhatti

@TMS

Yes I agree. This learning method saves us from frustration.At this point we also want to learn what can be applied to the confronted problem. Means different ways to achieve one goal.

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## ImranBhatti

@AliGW

Thanks for making my post concise.My aim was to just point to what I am responding to. I was afraid to erase the tags

Can we paste specific lines and apply tags like we do with VBA Code?

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## Doc.AElstein

@Ali, I agree, the big quotes are unecerssarily cluttering. If you have time be a bit more selective with the deleting please - without a bit of his quote my answer looks a bit out of place.. 
________________________________
@Imran
Hi Imran



> Originally Posted by Doc.AElstein
> 
> 
> .....
> If I had the time again I would definitely  force myself into learning  at least basic VBA right at the start. 
> *I would definitely strongly recommend anyone using Excel to think about having a quick look at VBA codes* . It is one of those time investments that almost always pays off if you are doing any large amount of work with Excel.....
> 
> 
> 
> ...We find a lot of stuff online. But cannot determine* where to start*....?



Not an easy one to answer. Excel and VBA is a bit big and overwhelming. 
Where to start ? *There is no easy quick answer*... you must take your time and learn. If you try to go too fast you will mess up.. slow down. !!

The first link I gave in the You tube list is a good start (   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXP...S5k4zsvnu2mkJC ) . In fact I listed them in the order of beginner usefulness. ( I have all those videos downloaded to a continual play list. – I used to let the list run in the background while I was experimenting and practicing VBA. I also watched them sometimes in the evening as an alternative to watching the television!! )

So
_1) Watch the videos a few times, especially the first  *two*  
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXP...u2mkJC&index=1 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOV4...S5k4zsvnu2mkJC  
 ( *Don’t* watch the *third*. It is a bit wrong ) 

_2a)  Read up on    the *Excel  Range object*.  The Range object is what is “behind” every cell. You typically only see in the spreadsheet  a very small part of what it has to offer. You may only see one of the simple values. There is lots more  available from the Range object.  
 http://www.excelforum.com/developmen...ml#post4551080 
http://www.excelforum.com/developmen...ml#post4563838 
https://powerspreadsheets.com/excel-vba-range-object/ 

_2b)  Read up on  referring to  ranges 
 http://www.excelforum.com/tips-and-t...eet-cells.html 
http://excelmatters.com/referring-to-ranges-in-vba/ 

_3) Learn to use the macro recorder. Many people, even very experienced people,  still use this to get a start point for a code.  http://www.excelforum.com/developmen...ml#post4506470 

*I do give easy example now macro recording is for you , here it is*:
So, say, I do want this, with macro to do it_..
_..I do want to have “Hello Imran” in second cell in  *first* Worksheet
HelloImranInCell2.JPG 
http://imgur.com/xdpWXgR 
_._______________________________________________
_..................................................................................................................................................
*How I do this? – I do show now here:* 

_1) *Start Macro recording*

MacroRecorderDevelopmentTools123.JPG
http://imgur.com/TrzSDWq

Or 
MacroRecorderView1223.JPG
http://imgur.com/a/SZz8B

_..................................................................................................................................................
_2 ) *Type in second cell*

WriteInSecondcell.jpg
http://imgur.com/FbztL3N

_......................................................................................
_3 ) *Stop macro recording*

StopButton.JPG
http://imgur.com/4Wgqy8o

Or
StopDevelopmentTools12.JPG
http://imgur.com/VWDQ7pK

Or
StopView12.JPG
http://imgur.com/9jGAVrN
_..................................................................................................................................................

_4 ) *Save File*
SaveAs12.jpg
http://imgur.com/xrx2LHI

_.........................

Must Save As *.xlsm * ( With macros )
SaveWithMacros.jpg
http://imgur.com/LlUjBQo
_..................................................................................................................................................

_ 5) *Close File*

_..................................................................................................................................................
_ 6) *Open File and Enable macros on opening*

EnableMacroOnOpening.jpg
http://imgur.com/3jqtbZv

Or
EnableMacro123.JPG
http://imgur.com/ujOrpA5 
_..................................................................................................................................................
_ 7 )* Select macro and Option to Work on it*

DevelopmentToolsWorkOnMacro123.JPG
http://imgur.com/I91Yckx

Or

ViewWorkOnMacro1234.JPG
http://imgur.com/4jovFhV

 ( Or with Keyboard Short Cut 
*Alt + F8
* )
_......................................................................
_7a) you should see this:
Makro1HelloImran.JPG
http://imgur.com/n5UzhrN 

_7b) Change to this “Hello Alan” , 
and _ 7c) Click anywhere in code and  Hit Run > Button the code 
HelloAlan.JPG
http://imgur.com/ZHtsKA0

_ 7d) You should see this:
HelloAlan2.JPG
http://imgur.com/LwZVDaG 

_...................................

Now write code better
Like, for example , 
_ VBA does *not need* to “see” or Select. ( Me and you do )
_ It is better not to just use unqualified *Range(“ “)*. If you use this unqualified range referencing, Excel must “guess” what Workbook and what Worksheet you are using. Sometimes it might guess wrong!!




```
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See if you can run that code. 
Then see if you can , for example, use a macro recording to get different colors. Then modify the above code appropriately to give different colours. 
Or do lots of different things when you use the macro recorder. See if you can see what is making the different things happen. Then apply to the above code, modifying it appropriately. 

*Or just* do something whilst running a macro recorder. Then see if you can simplify it. The most obvious is removing what we need, but Excel VBA doesn’t, such as *Select*ing stuff. 
You see the macro recording just tries to reproduce what you did:
' For example, where a macro recording from what we did gives like_..
*Range(“B1”).Select*
*ActiveCell.Something*
' _..then Excel VBA needs only
*Range(“B1”).Something*
' Similarly_..
*Range(“B1”).Select*
*Selection.Something*
' _..can be reduced to
*Range(“B1”).Something*

_...............___________________________




*NOW _3) Practice, Practice, then a bit more Practice !*



Alan
_................._____________

P.s. and practice posting also: 




> ....Can we paste specific lines and apply tags like we do with VBA Code?



You can Practice Posting techniques here:
 http://www.excelforum.com/development-testing-forum/ 
Just start a Thread there with a title like “*Just testing, No reply needed*”. ( And edit some posts instead of Replying so as not too post too many unnecessary Posts )

Slow down and practice.  :Wink: 
* سست اور مشق*

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## ImranBhatti

Thanks for sharing the links to learning material in a sequence.Example code is running.

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## Doc.AElstein

Imran. 
*Please Edit Also*
*عمران آپ بھی ترمیم کر سکتے ہیں*

EditPost.jpg http://imgur.com/cQr475q 

So you can use the same post to practice. You do not need to waste space with lots of Posts. Use sometimes the same post !!!
http://www.excelforum.com/developmen...ml#post4586295

( I show you how to do it have just now done for you here is, so look here do it like this is:
http://www.excelforum.com/developmen...ml#post4586295 )

Practice* Edit*ing also !!!
Alan

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## FDibbins

Like many on here, I too, am self-taught, and have learned most from helping out on here.

When I started here, I thought I was good at excel, and to be honest, there was no-one even close to me where I worked.  I have a question or 2 that I needed hekp on, and came here to get that help.  It did not take me long to that, back then, what I thought of as being good (myself) wasnt even close.  I quickly found what good really looked like, by looking at some of the stuff that got posted here.  I would look as some of teh formulas posted, and think - huh what??? ll  (actually, I still do that now and then - and sometimes even with some of my own formulas that I put together a while back.

Like many have said here, I learn best from doing, not from reading, and my weak side is also VBA.  I just seem unable to wrap my head around the basics and fundamentals

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## AliGW

> My aim was to just point to what I am responding to.



When yours is the very next post in the thread, there is no need to quote at all. It's only really when things start to get out of sequence that you might need to post some of a previous post.  :Smilie:

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## FDibbins

> Like many have said here, I learn best from doing, not from reading, and my weak side is also VBA.  I just seem unable to wrap my head around the basics and fundamentals



or if you want to "point" to a specific part of a longer thread, but just commenting on that, might get taken out of context

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## ImranBhatti

In 2014 I was thinking that the programmers would not share there knowledge on the web for free. And I will have to learn form structured courses for Excel VBA.But then I remembered that we are taught from the childhood

"Ask Those Who Know"

Then I searched (And I still remember) with the keywords "Excel help" and I saw "Excel Help Forum" And to this moment I found its Experts/Gurus and even new registered users gave me the solutions.

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## MarvinP

Hi Imran,

I taught Math and Physics in High School for about 10 years before the HP hand held calculators came out.  I learned how to program them and bought a HP-85 in about 1980 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_series_80 ) which used HP BASIC for its language.  I read the HP manual and wrote code to solve very specific problems.  VisiCalc software came out for the HP-85 and I was introduced to my first spreadsheet.  In about 1982 I left teaching and worked as tech support and for Software Publishing Corp.  They developed a spreadsheet program called pfs:Plan and I was the head tester on it.  One of my jobs was to confirm all its functions gave the same answers as VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3.  In 1989 I moved to Seattle and worked at Microsoft as a test manager, just before Windows came out.  Egghead software hired me away from Microsoft as they needed a Technical Support manager for all software products they sold.  I needed to learn all software that worked on PCs at that time.  My focus was on databases and spreadsheets.  In about 2000 I started playing golf instead of tennis and realized Excel could be used for keeping more accurate scores.  I started developing Excel spreadsheets for golfing events.  I had been writing Basic language code since 1980, so the move to VBA wasn't that hard.  I was at Microsoft when Object Oriented languages became hot, so I tied my VBA knowledge into OO structures and seemed to understand it.  In about 2010 I found this forum and started answering questions.  I'd say I was at about a 60% level with Excel and learned about DNRs and CSE formulas since then.  I'm up to about 80% in knowing all of Excel now after learning more about Power Queries and a little "M" language.  

I believe you need to find a problem you want to solve and study it until you get an answer.  I believe in the Problem -> Answer approach to learning.  

If you want to learn VBA you need a problem that VBA might solve.  Then you should record a macro and look to see what it did.  Then see if you can simplify it to work better.  

I'm very glad I learned Excel as it has lasted much longer than most other software that I've needed to learn to use.  It has also added many new features and tools to keep up with newer databases.

I hope this gives you some starting points.

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## ImranBhatti

So you saw Excel as infant. :Smilie: 
So sir Marvin you must have met.
Dan Bricklin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDvbDiJZpy0

Like every field of knowledge, Excel VBA is also vast. Example is after learning many things suddenly a new thing comes in front of me and says like:" Hey I also exist.why did  you  not learn me?(like:CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary").LOL..
I was trying to have the text start from the right.I got a solution here with a little bit longer code.But when my boss saw(and I was thinking he will appreciate me to mange to get this solution and he did ) but he also said "Why did you not used the InsrReverse function?" and he gave me a very short 1 line code for that.

I

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## Doc.AElstein

> ....Example code is running.....



I was mostly trying to emphasise the use of the macro recorder: Marvin said it a bit more clearly: _“...record a macro and look to see what it did. Then see if you can simplify it to work better....”.._
The macro recorder is a great tool, and later, even when you are confident in VBA you will still  find it very useful to get some tricky syntaxes correct quickly. Try not to get in the bad habit of keeping the code just as the recorder gives it. I confess, in my own work, I often do!
_....................
____________________________________________________________________





> ..Achilles' heel is VBA...







> ... weak side is also VBA.  ... unable to wrap my head around the basics ...



That never ceases to surprise to me. I find VBA so much easier than the formulas people like you  churn out so quickly. Possibly then there is some worth in separating them , as we do here with the different Sub Forums. _...
But_....  do a macro recording ..  it will do you good !  :Smilie: . 
And read up and try to understand Range objects and referencing.. that is a major part of what Excel ( at least the spreadsheet side )  is all about**:  ... dealing with cells. Excel organises its cells through the Range object. _..... someone said it themselves 



> _..trying to learn Range Objects (still having hard time learning VBA stuff...



  ...      http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...ml#post4182466  . Understanding Range objects  *will* get you a long way initially.
_.................
_____________________________________________________




> ..Like every field of knowledge, Excel VBA is also vast.



Many areas of computing have, indeed got almost out of control in their complexity. In many cases it was given up years ago to try and document everything clearly. So it can really be overwhelming. Help from Forums can be essential. Few people come close to knowing all. Those that do often share their knowledge here.

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## AliGW

> But_.... do a macro recording .. it will do you good ! .
> And read up and try to understand Range objects and referencing.. that is a major part of what Excel ( at least the spreadsheet side ) is all about**: ... dealing with cells. Excel organises its cells through the Range object. _..... someone said it themselves



It's not that I don't know to learn it, should I want to, it's just that I have encountered very few occasions so far when I have needed to use it, so I haven't bothered ... yet. As someone said earlier, it's really much easier to stick at it if you have a specific real-time project on the go. I shall learn it one day, no doubt, but at the moment, other things are required of me (SQL and Power BI).  :Smilie:

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## MarvinP

Hey Imran,

In about 1972 while teaching High School the school was donated an old computer.  It was the size of a refrigerator and had 64K of memory.  It had 3 teletype keyboards connected to it that could also print.  The math department got this thing and created a computer club and the department head offered a programming class, even though he didn't know how to code.  I helped with the computer club and taught the teacher and students how to write BASIC language code.  Most of the 8 students really only wanted to play Star Trek, the only game we had for it, and not learn to program.  One student, Joseph Tebelskis, was our star and really wanted to learn how to code.  I lectured one day about some day computers might be able to make decisions given some sentences of facts.  Joe wrote code to answer questions using this machine and entered his program into the local science fair.  His project then went to the International Science Fair where he took me instead of the department head.  Joe took 3rd for his program.  Joe eventually went to college at Berkley, CA and graduated at the top of his class in computer science.

I'm a little older than Dan Bricklin and lived and worked in Silicon Valley (south of San Francisco), so we never met.  I too had an HP-65 handheld calculator (that Dan shows in his TED talk) and I had written many programs to do basketball statistics and classroom gradebooks.  I'd been teaching High School for about 10 years when I bought my HP-85.  While still teaching I wrote a HP-85 program to send data over an acoustic modem.  The data was coordinates that surveyors had collected who were building subdivisions, like streets and lots to put houses on.  The surveyors collected their data in a handheld device that looked like a HP-65 and it didn't talk to the mainframe computer.  BUT the HP-85 did talk to the handheld and also the mainframe.  I wrote a communication link to pull data from the handheld and sent it to the mainframe.  I was soon loaned a HP flatbed plotter to see if I could draw the subdivision using the surveyor coordinates.  I ended up writing a drafting program that duplicated what a draftsman do.  My example drew few streets with housing lots giving the coordinates of each point and length of each line.  This would allow them to mark each point as they build the streets and homes.  I was then asked to write a manual of how the program worked.  I had named it "Draft/Idea" and we couldn't sell it without a manual.  Math was my skill and spelling wasn't.  Instead of writing a manual for "Draft/Idea" I wrote a word processor for the HP-85, that I called "Write/Idea".  Some sales guy in Sacramento got excited and wanted to sell it for me.  We hired a tech writer who wrote the manual and we went out for sale.  The Apple II had just hit the market and very few HP-85s were sold.  The HP-85 was twice the machine the Apple II was but it never took off in sales numbers.  We sold about 600 "Write/Idea" in two years at about $200 each.  I never sold the telecommunication program or the drafting program.  

While still teaching in about 1980 I met a dental supply salesman who was having a problem keeping track of what he had sold to all the dentists he serviced.  I put together a VisiCalc solution for him using his HP-85.  He could change the cost or price of any one of his items and it would roll forward to a grand total.  He was amazed and used my solution.  I didn't charge for this service either as I was a teacher and not a businessman.

After writing 3 programs and still selling Write/Idea I was having lunch with some other math teachers.  The need and use of computers was completely unknown at that time.  I was explaining some of the things I had written, and another math teacher not believing me, asked if I was such a good programmer why was I still teaching?  I soon left teaching and moved into the computer world.  Joe Tebelskis had found a job at Software Publishing Corporation and they were hiring.   I applied for a programming position but was a little too old and inexperienced as a programmer as BASIC wasn't the language they used.  Lattice C and P code compilers were the hot topic at that time.  I ended up as a technical support person, answering phones and helping customers with the pfs: products we were producing.  After about a year of phone support I graduated to a Tester position.  I got the pre-release products and found LOTS of bugs the programmers would fix before we shipped the products.

Joe Tebelskis was on a team of 3 people writing pfs:Plan, a spreadsheet that used column heads to do calculations.  I was the head tester for this project.  I remember not knowing relative vs absolute address addressing when I started my work on Plan.  That meant I didn't know $A1 was different than A$1.  Lotus 1-2-3 dominated the market and Plan was released but never sold.  Joe went on to get his PhD at Carnegie Mellon to work on speech recognition. https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.noda...d.php?id=50410 .  Others were also working on speech recognition and were getting faster and better results using different models than Joe's.  He completed his PhD, depressed as his path wasn't the one that became the accepted method.  He moved to Seattle and wrote code for anyone who needed it until colon cancer got him at the age of about 45.  

Thanks for letting me give some history of computers and telling an unknown story.  My story is one of thousands who helped develop the love of computers that aren't known.

I think the bottom line for others, is you need to learn new things and follow things that succeed.  I'm very impressed with the Power Query tool introduced in Excel in the 2010 version.  I believe it will become a standard and you might want to learn it.  VBA seems to be on the way out.  Artificial Intelligence seems to be the hot topic this decade, along with dealing with BIG Data.  I'm very glad I learned Excel as it seems to have survived well past VisiCalc, Lotus 123 and Quatro Pro.  I wonder if Google Sheets will finally kill Excel?  We all need to keep learning, even as we get older.  Even older than Dan Bricklin.

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## Doc.AElstein

Nice Story , Marvin.
                          Mine isnt as interesting, but I can identify with some things you mentioned very well.
Originally a Practical Physicist, I had a very short but quite successful career as a Microwave Engineer  at the Microwave products Division of a, then, very famous and big Instruments Company.

   The Management were trying a weird experiment at our Division, where the production lines and Engineering and Research Departments were all integrated and all the usual  in between Departments  didnt exist. The Engineering Computer department of between 1 and 4 people were our Research and Development Engineers Digital Electronics Department and were trying to use the first generation of Micro processors to make some of the Instruments partly digital.

   I was pretty busy being a Microwave Engineer, but  I took a passing interest in controlling everything imaginable with an HP-85, ( and occasionally some HP Pascal thing I have forgotten about ),  for my stuff, and ended up lumbered with automating all the production lines Test gear, Bus cables all over the place. I wrote simple but massively long programs full of complicated formulas. I put Beeps in everywhere which drove everyone including me  crazy. 

   I managed to set myself up with a lot of test equipment that usually was  a lot more expensive than a house at the time, and then bought some new HP-85s hoping to set myself up in business. Fate took a strange turn and I went into a technology and computing coma for 20  25 years. When I woke up I was really puzzled by Object Oriented Programming.  But I got used to it, bought a PC or three , and I think never got around to unpacking some of the HP 85s. But I still *Let* myself put *Rem* statements in long codes, partly for the memory. I dont beep as much as I used too... 
 :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 
beep

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## MarvinP

Hey Doc,

I too burnt out after writing Write/Idea. http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?sw=347 
Threshold Software (me, the marketing guy and a manual writer) joined forces with a business in Sacramento who sold big audio speakers.  The CEO of the speakers company wanted us to develop a database for the HP-85 to go along with the word processor.  He wanted to search and sort 10,000 records.  I realized this was hard on a 64K (memory) machine.  I ended up using the video memory and sorted records using the video display.  It looked like rain as the pixels lit and more records got sorted.  Looking back on this task, it was an impossible task, given the tools we had at that time.  I had programmers block for about 2 years and stopped writing code.  I find many of the questions on this forum are those "impossible" problems because not enough info is given or the OP asks for too much.

After Microsoft I joined the first Microsoft Access DB Users group and became the VP.  It took about 3 versions of Access for it to really work like people wanted.  I wrote a few Access apps back then.

Once again for Imran, you need to have the problem and use Excel (or any other tool) to get an answer.  This is how I think we best learn.

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## ImranBhatti

@Sir MarvinP
Really inspiring learning voyage 




> Once again for Imran, you need to have the problem and use Excel (or any other tool) to get an answer. This is how I think we best learn.







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 :Smilie: 




> We all need to keep learning, even as we get older. Even older than Dan Bricklin.



Yes we must learn and should not underestimate the current languages as they are for our era.Example is if you the legends did not learn then prevailing languages.You could not give us so much information.We need to be part of evolution.

And by the way ,although sir Dan Bricklin is old but he is very smart. :Smilie:

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## :) Sixthsense :)

> My Achilles' heel is VBA: as regular members of these boards will know, that is a learning curve I still haven't begun to climb. Maybe in my retirement I will make it one of my projects.



In my experience VBA is very easier than combining the functions to create it as formula.  I spent 5 years in learning excel functions via Old Microsoft Discussion Group and Other Excel Groups.  Also, I was very scared to learn VBA, but in reality I found that it is very easy to learn (Basic Level VBA).

When I join here in EF I am a complete novice about VBA.  I just answered Formula Related Questions for 2 years and after that I decided to concentrate on VBA subforum only by way of reading all the questions and answers posted in VBA sub forum.  

Now I am comfortable in basic level VBA, and still surprised when I see the legend *snb* about his VBA knowledge and way of writing the code.

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## ImranBhatti

I hope other big names will also share there learning stories.

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## Arkadi

Well, I can't say I'm a "big name", but here is my bit...

I grew up fascinated by the concept of computers, but in my youth they were hardly mainstream, meaning they were used in business perhaps, but home PCs were not yet common (my cousin in Canada had a commodore 64, but I lived in a 3rd world country and knew 1 person with an Atari 2600).
2 years after I moved to North America, in grade 9, I took a Basic course, which was the full extent of compters/programming that was available in high school.  LOVED it, but again, that's where it stopped.
Went on to finish high school, and in University I followed my parent's interest, which was a year of Political Science, and eventually a bachelor's degree in Law.  Then after school, not having the money for law school yet, I went into the workforce, doing quality control at a fiberoptics company.  That was not very computer oriented, but I did bring excel into our role, using it extensively for reports and such, but purely with formulas and tables, VBA was completely foreign to me.\
Now I still work in manufacturing, but when I started in the warehouse, I realized that the same data was being written over and over (and since we do a lot of medical work too, errors are a disaster), it was time consuming, and transcription errors ruled.  Documentation, labelling, was all generated manually based on someone else's scribbles on run logs.
That is when I started playing with VBA, realizing that I could make spreadsheets for data entry, and automate the necessary outputs. One small project led to another, and before long I had "automated" many of our processes (in terms of data entry and document generation), which I eventually expanded to upload the data in real time to databases, thus making live production information available to the supervisors and managers.  Over the course of the past 9 years, I have gone from Warehouse Specialist, to Estimator, Production Supervisor, and now finally Programmer.  I love my job, have a lot of fun resolving challenges, and have developed many many excel applications, most of which are now only the front end of a bigger system that relies on the databases in the background.
Google was my main teacher at first, then much of the information was put into clearer context when I found this forum, and now I'm usually back to google before asking here, but I occasionally still ask a question.  However, my real addiction is helping others in here, for which I STILL often use google to get a detail that I am not familiar with, but now at least I understand (to an extent) what I'm talking about.
How did I become an "Expert"?  It is just a label (though one I wear with pride), granted to us by the people we help and the "Rep Points" they may be kind enough to give us.
I am blown away every day by some of the responses I read from some of the Guru's on the site, sometimes by just thinking "Why didn't I think of that?", but just as often "WOW! I NEVER would have thought of that" or "OMG what is that?" because some of it is out of my league for sure.

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## FDibbins

> I am blown away every day by some of the responses I read from some of the Guru's on the site, sometimes by just thinking "Why didn't I think of that?", but just as often "WOW! I NEVER would have thought of that" or "OMG what is that?" because some of it is out of my league for sure.



That still gets me too.  A while back, I posed the question to the forum - how do you go about answering questions here, what process do you follow.  I think there were almost as many answers as there were experts (and I use that in it's truest sense, not as a rank here)

My VBA is weak, but sometimes when I look at some of the formulas presented by some of the top members here (I wont mention any names, because Im sure to leave some out and dont want to offend anyone), I have tried to wade through them, and got so lost I gave up
(having said that though, I have found the same problem when I see some of my older complex formulas - wow reall??? I made that???  How does it work, what was I smoking when I made that??? LOL)

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## Doc.AElstein

> ....when I see some of my older complex formulas - wow really??? I made that???  How does it work, what was I smoking when I made that??? LOL)



When trying to figure out how a long complicated code that I wrote a while back works...  I see the pages of well layed out clear detailed explanations and code ‘Comments  I did, ..  and  think .. --  B#####! -  I’m not reading all that. 
 :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  
_.________________________________________




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It is amazing how many experienced programmers still get { If Else End }, { With End With } { For Next } sections mixed up.
 The VBA error message that comes up is often confusing as it does not pick out the exact section where you have missed something (https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-...ml#post3869039    )

Always write a code like your example in this sequence, --1) , --2), then --3) .... ( Important are the indents and always type things like { For Next } in pairs with the same indent )
And make good use of ‘Comments -  There is bags of room to the right where you can cram in useful things like URL’s and explanations  ( that you and no one else will ever read.. lol    :Smilie:    )


https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-...ml#post3869151 






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'_--

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## snb

The best use of comments is not commenting at all; writing clear, good formatted code should make comments redundant.

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## Doc.AElstein

> The best use of comments is not commenting at all; writing clear, good formatted code should make comments redundant.



Using named*:=* arguments and all arguments including optional ones can help remove the need for so many ‘Comments. But I still like to store useful info / links, notes etc in the space to the right. Just a personal preference  :Smilie: 
I doubt anyone could understand your legendry “one liner” codes without as lot of ‘ExPlanations  :Wink:   :Smilie:

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## BellyGas

^^^^^^  what snb said.

I'm currently contracted to the financial reporting dept of a major company, they've got lots and lots of VBA running an excel based reporting system and whoever has written most of this code has commented pretty much every line.

You get things like:




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If you can read VBA you don't need the comments, you only need comments to say why something is being done....like, for example, if I set a cell to a certain value to be referred to later in other code.....I'll put a comment saying something like 'Set A1 to xxxx to indicate which screen to return to on exit'.   For example.

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## Doc.AElstein

> ....You get things like:....



I certainly would not do it like that. I agree that sort of format is an annoying waste of space. If I wrote some of my code like that , then I would run out of vertical space in my VB Editor code window I expect !! 
I doubt I would use any Comments for that code snippet of yours  in my codes I use for myself , or passing on to anyone that knows the basics of VBA.

 If I was being so Explicitly Pedantic for an OP, especially a beginner, then I would stick all the info in the space to the right  (   I find the code window good for putting stuff in that I might not want to see every time, but can , if I chose, get to by using the scroll bars   https://www.excelforum.com/the-water...ml#post4613354    )




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See also this Thread for a discussion on 'Comments: and the such:
https://www.excelforum.com/the-water...principle.html

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## AB33

In general ,most VBA code is done on range object- it is virtually about loops and conditional statements. Unless you create your own custom application ,which probably helps the user if you follow programming conventions, most people can work out what each line means or does. In VBA, I do not follow programming conventions, such as proper naming and include comments. I know a person in this forum( Not naming him/her) who uses  20-30 length words for naming, even for a simple loop. 

Most people will not write more than a couple thousands lines in VBA and I do not see any benefit cluttering with comments and long winded names.

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## ImranBhatti

The comments and the indentation of code is for the intellectual enjoyment of the programmers. Isn't it?

The user of the application has nothing to do with this .All is the front end for him

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## Doc.AElstein

> The comments and the indentation of code is for the intellectual enjoyment of the programmers. Isn't it?....



well it amuses my small mind  :Smilie:

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## AB33

indentation is for readability of a code ,while comment is for understanding what a statement does.

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## snb

Indentation is for the visual representation of the methodical substructures (and hierarchies - nesting- ) in a code: for..next, do .. loop, if .. else .. end if, select case .. end select.

Paragraphing is also a strong structuring vehicle:
In my code the first part is 'reading data', the second part is processing the data, the third part is 'wring/storing' the processing results.
Criteria: read only once, write only once, process as much as possible in arrays.

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## Doc.AElstein

> process as much as possible in arrays.



I would agree 90% with that.

Just a couple of reservations:
_1) I find that using Ranges in Worksheet Function rather than Arrays sometimes works much better and has less limitations.
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtop...=22512#p192781 


_...........................

_2) 



> .... read only once, write only once, ....



I find that both reading , writing and processing Arrays with single “breadth” ( 1 dimensional arrays and 2 Dimensional Arrays or one “row or one “column” ) is often particularly good. It is therefore sometimes better to read and write a few times to  get at, process,  and paste out a number of single “breadth” Arrays, rather than reading in a large 2 dimensional Range into a 2 dimensional Array and processing parts ( “rows” and “columns” ) of a larger 2 Dimensional Array .
https://www.excelforum.com/tips-and-...ml#post4380613


But ... Arrays are good. You should use them , in my opinion  :Smilie:

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## snb

@Doc

The link to eileen's illustrates the opposite of your statement. See also the arrays page on my website.

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## Doc.AElstein

> The link to eileen's illustrates the opposite of your statement.



The link I gave was possibly a bit misleading as it was to the last post  of the Thread where a smaller side issue to the main content of the Thread was being discussed, sorry about that... so.. to clarify..

*Briefly the situation was:* ( a couple of things *.... 1)* and 2) 

*1) Arrays versus Range objects in Worksheet Functions* 

Do I use there
A Range object as first argument in Application.Match
 or 
 An Array captured in one go in place  of that Range object,  Pseudo like arr() = Range.Value
( or
Simple Array analysis not using Worksheet Functions at all ) 

Using an Array as second argument  in .Match, I had problems:
1a) Size constraints_  
_ .Value method returns Variant type Member elements. Strings held  in Variant are limited to 255 character length.
_  “column” dimensions in an Array used in worksheet functions are limited to 255

Worksheet Functions sometimes  work best ( faster )  with ranges 
_  For the same data and worksheet area, it was generally faster to use a Range object rather than the Array obtained from Range.Value, - my guess is that when used in a worksheet Function an Array is “pseudo” converted to a Range,  and that “Pseudo” Range is used in the Worksheet Function. That extra step I am guessing takes extra time. 
_  I unusually find things like .Index work just as fast  when I use .Cells Property to return the full spreadsheet Range object  as first argument, rather than a smaller Range object. 
( _  Excel generally seems to work the best in single “breadth things” be they Arrays or spreadsheet Ranges.  – that is relevant to .Match , compared to .Find for example, as the second argument in .Match uses a single “breadth” range or Array )  
The above observations  I  can explain to some extent with  my  Interception Theory (  https://www.excelforum.com/tips-and-...d-vlookup.html  )
I think it is reasonable to assume that Worksheet Functions have been optimised to work on Worksheets. In the referenced thread I was finding that using a .Match ( with Range as second argument )   to find a cell value across a long ( single “breadth” ) row was by far the fastest compared with Array manipulation with or without a Worksheet Function. ( In addition I was not subject to the size constraints when using an Array as the second argument in .Match )

But for the Array vote... :Smilie:  
_2) “_Thrashing VBA Memory Leaks. Memory Loop Problems. Uncleared Memory in .Match Range Object”_
 As I  went further I hit horrendous undocumented problems with “leakage” when using such a Range object based .Match in a Loop. Excel has a memory of a used range which it does not appear to clear properly . No one understands why. But you soon crash Excel when its Memory capacity is  reached.
In this case, a simple Array manipulation code   saved the day and was,  in fact,  the only method which always worked.
https://www.excelforum.com/excel-pro...ge-object.html
https://www.excelforum.com/excel-pro...de-please.html 
Complicated Mental  things go on in worksheet Function and spreadsheet analysis interaction that no one understands. 
Array manipulation follows, as far as I have seen up until now,  sane  Mathematical rules.


My point in *Post #52* was referring to Point 1) mainly .....
_...________________





> See also the arrays page on my website.



_....One thing that inspires me to keep Healthy  is the hope to live long enough to take in the wealth of info at your Web site.  :Smilie:  . (  It takes me more time then I probably have unfortunately: I prefer to understand codes I use. You rarely  explain your great solutions as you do not want to and occasionally don’t understand them yourself. Very very occasionally they are wrong. We all make mistakes ,, you all be it several orders of magnitude less than most. , ( or me anyway  But mistakes in such things can really throw someone off course.  I don’t buy it that you make mistakes on purpose, well not always  :Wink:  ).)
  I have visited your site  more times than I can remember, and I think there is nothing regarding Arrays  to contradict the points I have made above, . I don’t think you mention any of the Array Limitations, but tomorrow i will take another look at your Array site.. I might have missed something in that respect.. )
(_.... in *post #52* I was mainly considering Point 1) ). I doubt many people other than me have ever come across point 2) .. I doubt if that is an argument generally for using Arrays, as I doubt many people have a task as complicated in some aspects as mine – I hit the borders of known VBA computer science frequently, unfortunately )  ). 


Alan  :Smilie: 


By the way... I know of a great example of where someone took a Range object rather than an Array into a Function and did a very interesting thing_...
http://www.excelfox.com/forum/showth...Array#post9714 
_... But he did not make a point of describing it as such.... he subtly said...”... _If you want to remove row 12 from array [A1:K20]_ ....”....
 :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 
 :Wink: 
_.... well if you consider the spreadsheet as a “pseudo” Array , as I often do , ( especially when I use _“.Cells_” in Worksheet Function Grid arguments such as .Index ) , then I guess you can say “_array [A1:K20]_”  :Wink: 




_........_____________________

http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...ml#post4528848
http://www.snb-vba.eu/VBA_Arrays_en.html 
http://www.excelfox.com/forum/showth...age2#post10174

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## snb

:Confused: 




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## Doc.AElstein

> ```
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 :Confused:   :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 

_...........................



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 :Mad:   :Frown: 

_.......................



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 :Smilie: 

_..........................



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 :Smilie: 





'*For more:  see here* https://www.excelforum.com/developme...ml#post4614257
(   http://www.excelfox.com/forum/showth...0191#post10191     )

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## JapanDave

> _...........................
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> ...



Well , you should know that snb is the Jon Skeet of VBA.

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## Pete_UK

I think this thread has moved far away from the original intent, which was for the Gurus/Experts to give some personal background information about themselves.

Pete

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## ImranBhatti

I hope sir Pete will have some spare time to tell his story too.

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## AliGW

So do I, Imran - it's a real shame about all the clutter in this thread.  :Smilie:

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## philaugust2004

Reading the history of how you all became experts and gurus is inspiring. It is good that some began as novices on boards and forums like this as I use this forum to learn but also to offer help where I can so maybe one day in the distant future I can attain the coveted status

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## AlKey

> So do I, Imran - it's a real shame about all the clutter in this thread.



And you have the power to delete those posts that do not belong here :Wink:

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## AliGW

> And you have the power to delete those posts that do not belong here



I have the power, yes, but I will not abuse the privilege. In this case, there would need to be a joint moderators' decision.  :Smilie:

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## FDibbins

While I agree, this *is* the water cooler  :Smilie:

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## TMS

Shame though, as, even though it IS the Water Cooler, it clags up an otherwise interesting discussion.

Can you not just move the side discussion(s) to a separate thread and provide a link to it for anyone who does want to follow it (other than the primary contributors)?

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## ImranBhatti

> So do I, Imran - it's a real shame about all the clutter in this thread.



Being an OP of this thread I had in my mind that I will be reading inspiring stories of the Experts/Gurus (Which I did get from some experts/gurus)

The Gurus/Experts who are discussing other things  ,have shared there history/stories .They have contributed.

I request the Mods to kindly revert  this thread jointly (as AliGW think), to its original topic. So that the members/guests may know the persons who are helping the Excellers (either by formulas/functions or by VBA)

The thread also changed many titles other than that what it was started with.

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## Pete_UK

> I hope sir Pete will have some spare time to tell his story too.



Okay, I did a first degree in Physics and a Masters in Reactor Physics in the early 70's, so I suppose I could be classed as a Nuclear Physicist (!! though I never actually practised as one). I learnt to programme (as it was then spelt) in Fortran 4 while on the Masters course, and I had used a few different analogue computers in experiments on the undergraduate course. I had learnt to touch-type by the time I left school, so I was able to type my own punch cards and get a very fast turn-round, so I picked up programming very easily.

My first jobs were involved in non-destructive testing (NDT), i.e. using ultrasonics to test the integrity of welds and the thickness of metals in storage tanks and pipework, mainly in the nuclear and petro-chemical industries. I was basically an electronics engineer, designing and building interfaces between the ultrasonic equipment and storage devices (which included mini-computers), for what were essentially development projects, as no two jobs were the same. I formed my own company along with three others in 1978, at the age of 26, and that grew to about 30 employees within a few years.

In the early 80's I became a self-employed Design Consultant in NDT, and to fill in the peaks and troughs of that work I also took on some private tutoring. I bought myself a BBC Computer, and learnt to program in BBC Basic (and later in 6502 Assembler), and was able to get some part-time lecturing work in Computer Science in a local FE College. That developed into a full-time job after a year, so I ended up teaching computing during the next 9 years (various levels - A and O level, GCSE, BTEC HNC, Cert Ed etc.). I tended to teach the more technical aspects, i.e. number and logic systems, programming (BASIC, Pascal, C etc.), operating systems, data structures etc., and I was always fascinated by different algorithms, i.e. ways of achieving different outcomes. Obviously, I had to learn a lot of these "technical" details myself, as my degrees were not in computing, and the field was changing rapidly.

As the teaching side moved more towards the use of packages (and I was very proficient with some, like Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, dBase 3, so much so that other staff in the college would come to me as the "expert"), I was able to move onto the management side of the college for the next 6 years, and became responsible for the MIS system for student records. Though this was mainly a database admin job, I also developed my spreadsheet skills further by extracting data from the main database and producing various reports for the teaching staff and managers, who I had to "drag" into the computer age. I decided to leave the college towards the end of 1998, and together with my wife, embark on something completely different.

This was to set up a consultancy to handle all aspects of a (business) clients' utility supplies - electricity, gas, water, phones, mobiles etc. We would analyse usage from the bills, go out to tender and evaluate responses, implement changes to the supplier, and continue to monitor the bills to check the correct tariffs were being applied and to evaluate savings, as our fees were based on actual savings made. At first I continued to use Quattro Pro and Word Perfect to help with the analyses, and it wasn't until about 2001 that I first started to use Excel and Word. It was difficult at first to changeover to Excel, as a lot of the nomenclature was different, but I persevered and also taught myself VBA programming.

It was while I was working on a macro development for a client that I first came across the old Newsgroups for Excel, as I had a particular problem that I couldn't solve myself - this was about 2005. This discovery opened up a world of possibilities for me - not only could I learn even more about Excel, but I found that I could offer answers to many of the questions being asked, so I became a contributor, and the rest is history, as they say. I've contributed to a few other forums, and joined here just over 6 years ago. I retired from working about 3 years ago, and would now be considered an Old Age Pensioner.

As a student I had learnt how to learn, particularly in a "technical" environment, and as a teacher I frequently had to prepare for a new syllabus or a new package with very little training, so I had to pick things up for myself. The use of Excel (or any other package) has always been peripheral to my main jobs - just a tool that you use to get things done, but I suppose I have the ability to learn different aspects of it quite easily. I also love solving problems and designing practical solutions (in many different situations, not just crunching numbers), so Excel helps me satisfy some of those desires.

Hope this helps.

Pete

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## AliGW

Reminds me of one of the seven ages of woman (from a revue sketch):

My boy's a nuclear physicist,
Helps Sir William Penny down at Harwell!
My boy's a nuclear physicist
Making his atomic pile.
He's just an ordinary fellow -
He disintegrated Montebello!
And when the lights are low
There's more than uranium in his cranium ...
My boy's a nuclear physicist,
And I'm going to be his bride,
For he makes less fuss of the nucleus,
And rather more of the physical side.  :Wink:

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## ImranBhatti

@Sir Pete_UK

So
"Ap nay ghat ghat ka pani piya hay"

word by word translation is " You have drunk the water of almost every  well."
You developed love for spreadsheets little bit late but griped very well. I am  personally the witness for the last 4 years.I also got your help.

If I am not wrong you are more active in formula/functions than VBA as for as this forum is concerned.

Yes teachers have to pick things for themselves as they are the captains of the ship of the youth.

The result of the story is that you are a quick learner and a good teacher.

The posting of AliGW shows some family relations if I am not wrong.


Thank you very much for sharing your story and letting us know about.

I am noticing that the Experts/Gurus have the experience more than even my age( I am 36)

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## ImranBhatti

this thread will be further honored if Sir snb share his personal history/profile. I have seen his coding trend in this forum and at his website and curious to know more about.
I request him to, some day, tell us about himself please.

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