William B. (Billby) formulated the question :
Hi again Garry,
It was interesting to learn about your path to becoming such an Excel-ent VBA
guru. Experience gained as machinist/toolmaker must have helped you to focus
on the detail and precision of programming. In part that could explain the
accuracy and clarity of your many helpful posts.
That certainly applies to programming CNC machines, where the tiniest
mistake has catastrophic consequences. The primary language is Basic
and so transition to VBA (and later to VB6) was fairly easy. CNC
programming is primarily macros and subs and so is similar in many
respects to VBA.
For my part I did some programming in Basic and Fortran in the early 1970s
towards a Computer Science qualification. Computer work then was carried out
using teletypes, punched paper tape and punched cards for Fortran. There were
no VDUs. Memory and storage space were severely limited and students had to
book terminal and processing time. I did what was needed for the course but
decided then that programming was not for me. Instead I focused on computer
hardware and communications. Little did I realise that programming would
become so easy to do in the years to come... :D
Especially now that we have 'the ribbon' in Excel 2007 and beyond!
That's pretty much how it was for me back in college days (late
60s/early 70s). The first real world job I got did things the same way
(punch cards and paper tape). Back then our idea of a spreadsheet was
to scotch tape pages from a multi-column columnar pad. I was elated
when Lotus123 came along. I switched to Excel in v4 because the college
where I was teaching switched to MS Office.
I was ticked off when the ribbon emerged! Thanks to Ron deBruin's
efforts that's no longer an issue with me. At the time, though, I went
to great lengths to replace all my Excel apps with stand-alone VB6.exe
solutions via fpSpread.ocx! I was able to duplicate everything I was
doing in Excel PLUS create my own UI. Unfortuantely, most clients want
MS Excel solutions still so I just go along with the demand.
Seriously, during my working life I was associated with keen programmers to
consult when needed. Now of course I can avail myself of the many talents
freely given in these Excel groups. But you can see why as a first choice for
'one off' tasks I always try to find an easier way first...
This is always a first approach with me too, but when clients want
productivity solutions I opt to that regardless. I do a lot of
'repairing' of delimited files using TextPad. This is the text editor I
ship with my cnc files manager apps because it supports syntax
highlighting and line numbering. It also supports having multiple files
with the same filename open (as long as they're from different
locations). This is good for working with machine programs that utilize
similar blocks of code.
Stephen Hawking and his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease first came to my
notice when I tried to understand his book "A brief History of Time" in the
late 1980s [a lost cause for me.]
i think he's an amazing guy! It's good that he has the support and
backing of the university going for him. It would be a tough go for him
otherwise, being how far along his condition has progressed. I keep as
active as I can in the ALS community, hoping I can impart some
encouragement and inspiration to those less fortunate than me. (Typical
runtime for ALS is 6 months to 5 years)
I think it is absolutely remarkable that you can make such valuable
contributions to so many groups while at the same time dealing with the
debilitating effects of such a serious and progressive disease. I hope you
will be able continue doing so for many years to come, as I'm sure do all
those who benefit from your expert help here.
It's definitely a 'give-n-take' situation because these NGs contribute
lots to my learning. Again, I don't consider myself an expert but I'm
happy I'm able to give back something of what I do know when I can!!!
Many thanks for all your efforts and response,
I thank you for your kind words and encouragement...
--
Garry
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