Recommendations for learning VBA

[P12OFIT]

Has anyone attempted to teach themselves VBA? If so, were you happy with the results? I have quickly realized how marketable this skill would make me at my firm and I am very interested in reading books, taking online courses, etc. but am unsure as to the best way to go about it.

 

[brokencycle]

Has anyone attempted to teach themselves VBA? If so, were you happy with the results? I have quickly realized how marketable this skill would make me at my firm and I am very interested in reading books, taking online courses, etc. but am unsure as to the best way to go about it.

This is how I've learned every language outside of school: you need a project/task you want to accomplish. I'm not an expert at VBA, but I can get by. I essentially just started Googling how to do things to complete the project I was working on.

 

[otc]



This is how I've learned every language outside of school: you need a project/task you want to accomplish.  I'm not an expert at VBA, but I can get by.  I essentially just started Googling how to do things to complete the project I was working on.

This. Easiest way to learn something like this is to have a goal in mind and figure out how to solve it. Without any direction, its really hard to stay on task and actually learn anything. Places like stackoverflow and various excel forums can be very helpful for getting in to something. You can even make a post like "Here's what I am trying to do, here's what I have tried so far, but I can't make it actually work"...you might get some flak for something open-ended like that, but as long as you show that you have really tried (and aren't like...a student trying to get homework answers), someone will probably help you out with any problem imaginable.

VBA is a bit funny...and it might be best to just dive right in. Say you have an excel file that does come calculations. Maybe it creates a valuation using some assumptions like discount rate, tax rate, expected rate of return, etc. Try adding a button to the sheet the resets all of the assumptions to their defaults. So if you give the sheet to someone and they calculate some wacky numbers, but then want to go back to some more rational choices...you don't have to worry about them accidentally leaving the discount rate at 80% instead of 8%.

Automating things like that is pretty easy and a good intro to working with VBA.

With more advanced programming, if you have never done any programming at all before, it might make sense to start with basic lessons to learn good coding practices. Hell, you could even spend a couple hours playing this game: https://codecombat.com/ which will teach you some basics of programming. It has Python or Javascript...both have pros and cons (I'd pick python for this) and neither one is exactly like VBA...but hey, it's a silly video game that actually teaches you some pretty useful programming.