# How long to learn VBA if self teaching?



## Nuttymut (Aug 30, 2014)

As the title

How long will it take to learn vba to a reasonable standard if I self teach

Thanks in advance for any advice

Nuttymut


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## jasonb75 (Aug 30, 2014)

How long does it take to run a marathon?

Depending on your personal ability, the quality of information that you have to learn from, what you would call a reasonable standard, etc, the answer could be anything from weeks to years.


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## Nuttymut (Aug 30, 2014)

jasonb75 said:


> How long does it take to run a marathon?
> 
> Depending on your personal ability, the quality of information that you have to learn from, what you would call a reasonable standard, etc, the answer could be anything from weeks to years.



Where would I look for information that's of a good quality?

Can you recommend any websites of books please?

Thanks in advance

Nuttymut


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## VoG (Aug 30, 2014)

Take a look at Hiker's list *http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/788128-compare-values-worksheets.html#post3857750*


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## hiker95 (Aug 30, 2014)

Vog,

Thanks for that.


Nuttymut,

See the below *link* for my most up to date list:

*Training / Books / Sites* as of 8/19/2014

*http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-...ing-range-into-concise-table.html#post3911064*


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## jasonb75 (Aug 30, 2014)

Nuttymut said:


> Where would I look for information that's of a good quality?



Not in the macro recorder 

The main thing that will teach you is how to write long winded and inefficient code.

One of the biggest problems with self teaching is trying to create a stable learning structure, a lot of the books that I've seen tend to drag things out too much, with what seems like a few hundred pages showing you a handful of ways to produce a messagebox saying "Hello". Before you get halfway through you find yourself skipping pages to find something different, ultimately missing some useful information buried in the pages you skipped.

Trying to learn by doing rather than working from books can mean that you start learning a slightly more advanced level of coding before you know enough about the basics which can leave you over-engineering simple tasks.

Information source:- Been there, done that


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## Macropod (Aug 30, 2014)

Nuttymut said:


> How long will it take to learn vba to a reasonable standard if I self teach


Stupid question - like "how long is a piece of string?"


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## VoG (Aug 30, 2014)

Not so stupid I think.

When I started to teach myself VBA in about 1999, I already had a grounding in Fortran, C and (a bit of) Assembler, plus programming in RPN on HP calculators. I reckon it took me about a month to thoroughly understand the basics - in those days (Excel 5) the program came with a book on VBA. 

However, I am stil learning  - sometimes I answer questions on here and others come up with better solutions. There is currently a question on the MVPs forum here (hidden unless you are an MVP) that I just do not grasp.

The macro recorder actually is your friend but look here *Beyond Excel's recorder*


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