Visual Basic For Applications - Microsoft Excel Specific

What is this VBA stuff, anyway?

• A real programming language with a few, usually forgettable, distinctions from standalone Visual Basic.
• And one important one: The program is embedded 'under' the spreadsheet and can not be run outside of Excel
• A way to write windows code without having to think about "APIs" and "Threads" and such
• Unfortunately, not fully standardized across Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. But the basics are the same.
• A way to use Excel as a formatting and layout tool so that coding effort is expended on getting getting the job done, not building the graphical user interface.

Do's and Dont's
Do's

• Do use the WITH statement (execution speed)
• Do use Option Explict
• Do use array and where appropriate custom strucutre typs
• Do learn and use Application Funcitons.

Dont's

• Do Not use the cells as variables (really slow)
• Do Not get caught with signed/unsigned variable issues.
• Do Not fail to make a clean user interface your first priority
• Do Not write routines other people have done before!