# Introduction to VBA and Excel (for a philosopher)



## Scylax (Mar 4, 2016)

Hi all,

If you were to recommend one book, website, or series of Youtube videos to a philosopher buddy for a crash-course in VBA, what would you recommend?

_First post, I do hope I've posted in the right place and according to community guidelines. I did find a similar post here but felt it had a different general thrust than my own question. _

To expand a little: I'm just starting to use Excel and VBA on a number of projects, and am very excited about the possibilities. Overall, I'm quite new to using computers for anything other than the very basics (only about 3 years now, before that just email, google, and word, like yer grandma). However, I have a degree in history from an earlier, more care-free time, and my chief areas of study were the history of science, mathematics, and philosophy.

In other words, I'm this odd egg in that once I'm able to peel back the jargon, understanding the abstraction underpinning programming languages comes pretty naturally. The problem is, all the resources I find are more practically oriented, aimed at people who just want to learn how to compile reports in the office, "Excel for Dummies," that sort of thing. I'm looking for something that will help me get the concepts, the abstractions.

Now, I realize I actually need to go up the tree on this, and learn about more general types of programming. I've been working through the really quite good stuff on codeschool.org but that's more general material about object-oriented programming as exemplified by several popular languages. But I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of any materials as I'm describing that are specific to Excel, or VBA?

Many thanks,


----------



## jeffreybrown (Mar 4, 2016)

This is a good start...

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/923710-visual-basic-applications-excel-books.html


----------



## jtrombley24 (Mar 4, 2016)

I've enjoyed several over the years:
 - Excel Programming by Jinjer Simon (Visual Blueprint)- easy to read/understand with excellent code samples that automate daily tasks.
 - VBA and Macros by Bill Jalen (QUE)- Chapter 1 has a good explanation about objects, methods, properties etc, relating it to English nouns, verbs, etc.
 - Excel 2007 VBA Programmers Reference by Green, Bullen, Bovey and Alexander (Wrox) - for when you want to get deeper.

Trevor Easton on YouTube has some FANTASTIC videos, I recommend searching him first thing.  He's an excellent tutor.

Good Luck,
Jim


----------



## Scylax (Mar 5, 2016)

Thanks jeffreybrown and jtrombley24,

jeffreybrown, that list is HUGE! A comprehensive resource to be sure (bookmarked it for later reference) but not the sort of thing I'm looking for. Let me ask you a question that might clarify it: is there a book (or other resource) that made it "click" for you?

jtrombley24, ordered VBA and Macros, also looked up Trevor Easton. Weirdly, the first video I found covered the exact topic I was looking for!

Thanks again,


----------



## jeffreybrown (Mar 7, 2016)

Scylax said:


> is there a book (or other resource) that made it "click" for you?



No, I don't actually read any books on this topic, it has just come thru years and years of working on projects and spending many hours on forum's like this.

Trust me, I have asked a ton of questions which has enabled me in-turn to answer some.


----------



## RoryA (Mar 7, 2016)

For pure VBA, the VBA Developers Handbook by Getz and Gilbert is about as good as it gets IMO. (my degree was also in philosophy, FWIW).


----------



## Scylax (Mar 8, 2016)

Thanks, RoryA, and thanks, jeffreybrown,

RoryA, I'll certainly look into it. I'd be interested to know a bit more about your experience picking this stuff up. I find it's quite an odd experience to find I'm actually using some of that stuff for something! It's often quite angry-making: "but they already had a word for that" I yell while my long-suffering wife rolls her eyes, "they've had a word for that for three hundred years! Why do we need a new one? I would've understand what they meant _hours_ ago!!!"

jeffreybrown, yes, I'm realizing that having that human-to-human contact is HUGE when learning this stuff--as it is with learning any language, I suppose. I've been seeking out a tutor, someone who can work with me regularly, in my local community... and I signed up here and intend to be fairly active (and, I hope, eventually useful). I'll be posting my first actual excel problem today!


----------



## jeffreybrown (Mar 8, 2016)

Scylax said:


> I'll be posting my first actual excel problem today!



We look forward to working with you in your future endeavors.


----------



## Scylax (Mar 8, 2016)

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar!


----------



## jeffreybrown (Mar 8, 2016)

Scylax said:


> You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar!



Thanks, but when it comes to scholar, Rory, the other MVPs, and many other members here are the scholars...I just get lucky every once and awhile.


----------



## Scylax (Mar 4, 2016)

Hi all,

If you were to recommend one book, website, or series of Youtube videos to a philosopher buddy for a crash-course in VBA, what would you recommend?

_First post, I do hope I've posted in the right place and according to community guidelines. I did find a similar post here but felt it had a different general thrust than my own question. _

To expand a little: I'm just starting to use Excel and VBA on a number of projects, and am very excited about the possibilities. Overall, I'm quite new to using computers for anything other than the very basics (only about 3 years now, before that just email, google, and word, like yer grandma). However, I have a degree in history from an earlier, more care-free time, and my chief areas of study were the history of science, mathematics, and philosophy.

In other words, I'm this odd egg in that once I'm able to peel back the jargon, understanding the abstraction underpinning programming languages comes pretty naturally. The problem is, all the resources I find are more practically oriented, aimed at people who just want to learn how to compile reports in the office, "Excel for Dummies," that sort of thing. I'm looking for something that will help me get the concepts, the abstractions.

Now, I realize I actually need to go up the tree on this, and learn about more general types of programming. I've been working through the really quite good stuff on codeschool.org but that's more general material about object-oriented programming as exemplified by several popular languages. But I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of any materials as I'm describing that are specific to Excel, or VBA?

Many thanks,


----------



## RoryA (Mar 8, 2016)

Scylax said:


> I'd be interested to know a bit more about your experience picking this stuff up.



I actually started out as primarily an Access/database user, but moved on to using Excel for its analytical and presentation abilities. I began by doing a lot of stuff with the macro recorder where possible (a lot of my work was extracting data to Excel from Access, so the macro recorder wasn't always a lot of use), some reference manuals (back when Office came with them) and asking questions on a forum when I was truly stuck. In hindsight, I should probably have read a couple of books first - most of the early stuff I wrote was horrendously inefficient.



> It's often quite angry-making: "but they already had a word for that" I yell while my long-suffering wife rolls her eyes, "they've had a word for that for three hundred years! Why do we need a new one? I would've understand what they meant _hours_ ago!!!"



I think this part is true across most of the IT spectrum. A couple of companies ago, one of my "incidental" jobs was running the network and servers. Having spent many painful hours with some MCSE course books, I actually learned most of what I needed from an hour long chat with a generous engineer who had come to fix a printer. After that, the books made a lot more sense, but did still seem to have been written so as to obscure the information they contained.


----------



## DocAElstein (Mar 14, 2016)

Scylax said:


> If you were to recommend one book, website, or series of Youtube videos to a philosopher buddy for a crash-course in VBA, what would you recommend?.....



Second to practice and the other good advice you have had here, these are i think in order a good summary of current good You Tube Play lists for *VBA.* So just the first one if you just want one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXPb0qnKUY&list=PLS7iHfqXNVhK3yzd_4XS5k4zsvnu2mkJC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHO5NIcZAc4&list=PLNIs-AWhQzckr8Dgmgb3akx_gFMnpxTN5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd6Z9Pu0Log&list=PLRvJRREE9cUmR8GUwdAVH5Dq42RG9tlRP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIhKNNXzZLM&list=PLw8O1w0Hv2ztGjIkrW7suD6oNDaOk3vbR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z08z5Jx2U2A&list=PLw8O1w0Hv2zsPU-k2vPZ_6brD5Gk1sVy_
https://www.youtube.com/user/ExcelVbaIsFun/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_d8XO27HA8&list=PLrmbflR_3N5LDxq7WUMlhXL_9m7EAgcMq
https://www.youtube.com/user/ExcelVBAHelp/playlists?shelf_id=2&sort=dd&view=50
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVA_smmo8_F1yiam5Cno2SEPBLLPGOyBz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1enOnE29Y&list=PL3A6U40JUYCiXTl777-7lleNVtNeAhBVC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDYkKYvuckA&list=PL13007E847B3E6658
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huNEHBr60cc&list=PLUPPKKq6gARPYet5t6HT8LxNHIFWPgpaK

I downloaded all the playlist, converted to WMV , and made a locg endless Play list that I let run in the background. ( If you do that be very careful what Download and converter software you use, most seem infected with viruses currently )

Maybe Sometimes the Links change at You Tube. If that happens you could do a Google search with “You Tube” and these names
YourProgrammingNetwork
ExcelVbalsFun
WiseOwlTutorials
ExcelScreencasts
ExcelVBAHelp
Andreas Thehos
LoeblComServices
Dinesh Kumar Takyar
VBA4Excel
I-Helped-U DoubleCheck
methodactor1982VBA
davesexcel
_ .. and try to find there playlists.

Alan


----------



## Scylax (Mar 15, 2016)

Thanks Alan!

I like that idea of having things play in the background, I'll have to give that a shot...

I've certainly found videos seem to work well for me when it comes to picking up a specific task. I've been enjoying some of the names on your list--now I have some new ones to check out, thank you!


----------



## DocAElstein (Mar 15, 2016)

Yep, I let the long list run in the background while I was practicing, or let them run in the evenings to fall asleep to as an alternative to the Telly. It is a very relaxed way. It does not matter if you miss something. After rewatching it sinks in automatically. I have a massive list, which I am glad I made at the time to run on WMV.
 Be very careful though if you try to do the same ( downloading and converting etc ). My virus software has deleted recently all my Downloading and Converting Software, it seem there were a lot of things in it lurking and waiting to do me harm!! Any downloads i have retried are throwing up warnings and my protection Software will not let them download.

  But remember as always to push yourself to practice.

Alan


----------

