Why I suck as an Access Developer...

[NauticalGent]

Just as I love query solutions because they’re clean, I love VBA solutions because they’re cool. I know it’s geeky, but I still get a thrill out of stepping through a recordset in code, interrogating field values and metadata.

This is a quote from Danny Lesandrini in one of his Database Journal articles that resonated with me when I read it back in 2015. Ever since members of this forum showed me how to debug.print properly and step-through the code, I waste a crazy amount of time watching the process run - even when I have already tested it.

What should take minutes takes me hours(days) because I just get a real "rush" watching my creation work - like watching my granddaughter riding her bike...

My latest project was converting a VB Script to PowerShell and even though, with CharGPT doing the heavy lifting, I have had a working solution for a few days, I can't stop playing with it. At the end of the day I get hit in the head by the Good Idea Fairy and simply can't wait to get back to it in the morning to play with my precious a little more before I deploy it.

I need a 12-step program...

 

[GPGeorge]

I have been resisting the impulse to tweak tinker with a working app that's in the hands of a beta tester for the last four days. If he doesn't get back to me soon with things that need attention, I'll have to make something up....

 

[NauticalGent]

I have been resisting the impulse to tweak tinker with a working app that's in the hands of a beta tester for the last four days. If he doesn't get back to me soon with things that need attention, I'll have to make something up....

Glad its not just me then. If I find the appropriate 12-Stepper, I'll send you the info...

 

[Pat Hartman]

AWF is my solution When I don't have a problem of my own to fix, I fix someone else's

 

[Gasman]

Apparently word processors were the devil for journalists.

In the old days, they would make copy type out, and send it off.
With a word processor, they could amend and tweak to their hearts content, and that delayed getting the copy off, there was always another reason to tweak the copy.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Well there's always improvements crying out to be made in most databases.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

because I just get a real "rush" watching my creation work

This is a video clip of some code I put together for creating multiple Excel sheets from a table of car makes.

I occasionally just run the code to see it working!

 

[Pat Hartman]

My favorite code to watch isn't code at all. It is looking at the Excel or Word document as my code fills in values.

In normal production you turn off this display because it takes way too much time and the filling is much faster if you don't make the document visible until the filling is done but during testing, it is fun to watch.

 

[GPGeorge]

Pat reminds me of a project I worked on many, many years ago. It involved populating Excel worksheets with heavily formatted layouts after the data was exported to it. Things like italic or bold was added to certain words or phrases, different highlight colors called out summaries and totals, and even inserted borders were added to delineate sections. It took so long to complete one worksheet, that on one occasion the developer charged with developing it famously fell asleep while waiting for it to complete.

Make things invisible while they're being produced and display the completed product; take your coffee break at a different time instead.

 

[Gasman]

Years ago, before Excel MS wrote Excel, they wrote a spreadsheet program called MultiPlan.
That allowed you to record your keystrokes, and in doing so, we created a system that totalled, weekly, monthly and yearly reports, just by loading sheets in a certain order, with calcs in various sheets.

That used to be entertaining to watch that go by now and again.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

With a word processor, they could amend and tweak to their hearts content, and that delayed getting the copy off, there was always another reason to tweak the copy.

This is a definite problem for me in my guise as an amateur fantasy fiction writer. When I was first writing, I would get inspiration and maybe rip out 3 or 4 chapters in a single night. Then while things were percolating for the next lump, I would adjust and correct and tweak and polish the chapters I had just written and maybe even work on the earlier chapters to assure that I was maintaining narrative continuity. That has been my habit so long that it is the way I write now... except that the "inspiration part" doesn't always come so easily.