VBA Rubberducking

I think some of our main protagonists are just too busy with work to do much RD, so there's not much RD related chat. And since they're so busy, there's not much time for chat in general

BigBen

3:03 PM

I definitely feel that work has increased in the past few months. Sigh.

BigBen

4:14 PM

@MathieuGuindon - woot woot, dupe hammer.

Mathieu Guindon

:)

BigBen

Did you see this one yet?

0

Q: Determine the type of an uninitialized array in VBA

I want to write a function that, when given a declared but uninitialized array for a user-defined class, the function will identify the type of objects the array is designed to hold, and then create new objects for the array. I have a class called "clsNewSector", and I declare an array in another...

Also the question just closed has the infamous Unload Me haha

Mathieu Guindon

4:26 PM

That NewObject function is screaming "I'm taking your Single Responsibility Principle and throwing it in the bin" - InitializeObjectArray is similarly trying to do too many things at once; type safety in VBA is smoke & mirrors, and arrays are where the seams are the most glaringly showing. Consider a more object-oriented approach to creating objects, like factory methods. BTW your array is initialized: objects initialize with Nothing. — Mathieu Guindon 6 secs ago

@BigBen yep

BigBen

Nice.

This very much felt like an XY problem.

Mathieu Guindon

totally

BigBen

I figured the answer was a factory method. But I'm a bit behind when it comes to OOP.

Mathieu Guindon

> given a declared but uninitialized array

the whole premise is off

Private pSectors(1 To 3) As clsNewSector

^ array is initialized

BigBen

#tearitup

this

5:01 PM

TFW you click XP's start button and immediately start typing and it goes somewhere random.

BigBen

TFW... you're using XP?

Mathieu Guindon

haha I remember the first time I saw someone click the start menu and just type and it searched (Win7?), ...was like woah you can do that!!?

this

someone decided to run a Win95 app and now it can't run on Win 10 and they're all "oh, no, I really need the data in that old app"

compatibility mode did nothing

yeah, win7 was the one to introduce that. That was definitely a Godsent feature

HackSlash

I run some Win95 software just fine in Windows 10. Ours needs the old OpenGL from Win95 to display the graphics correctly. The new version of OpenGL does terrible things to the display window. If you drop the old DLLs in to the same directory as the binary it loads them instead of the system ones. This is default behavior for most apps.

this

5:16 PM

yeah, I don't know why it stopped working just now. I think it was working until now but hten they deployed a new version of server and it went boom-boom

Tries to launch but fails and I don't have time to deal with this.

HackSlash

I have one app that needs to be run in an NT4 VM. That is at least airgapped so that the only way to interact with it is through hypervisor tools.

this

at some point, one has to say "He's dead, Jim"

HackSlash

The company doesn't make the software anymore and it's required for some really old hardware that we also shouldn't be using. The machine says "West Germany" on it so you know it's old.

BigBen

holy crap

that's old

HackSlash

We are the legacy support nightmare you have read about.

I support HP-UX 9 ... Put that on my resume. Not sure if that looks good or bad.

this

5:22 PM

you could brag that you're a bona fide graybeard?

HackSlash

I only have a few gray hairs in the beard. One for each HP-UX machine I support.

HackSlash

5:35 PM

This took me down memory lane: winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems

FreeMan

6:23 PM

@HackSlash So does my birth certificate. Whatchatrying to say?

this

@FreeMan are you implying you remember the moment you came out of the birth canal?!?

IvenBach

Is greybeard a literal term? Or more of a go ask FooBar since He/She knows everything around here.

this

i've heard of it to refer to those "original" hackers

e.g. Richard Stallman would be a graybeard, having done all stuff UNIX-y

Linus would be antoher one if he had a beard.

IvenBach

Generational reference then?

Vogel612

7:05 PM

probably something of a general trope

Mithrandir (aka. Gandalf) is also a graybeard

as is Dumbledore

IvenBach

7:42 PM

Duck check: Throwing exceptions should occur when a method invocation fails, as in it can't perform its stated goal? Or if it's outside the control and the client (calling code) needs to deal with the failure?

> ... design all public methods of a framework to report method failures by throwing an exception.

This is in favor of returning an error code.

Mathieu Guindon

keep in mind that these are framework design guidelines; it's lower-level than library or application design.

still... I'm not seeing how that quote reads as in favor of returning an error code?

IvenBach

It doesn'tt

It states to favor exceptions over error codes.

I now see how my previous #wording was poor and easily misunderstood.

Mathieu Guindon

ah

Mathieu Guindon

8:16 PM

woot, it works!

...kinda. blew up at parsing the example for EnumeratorMember

and fixed

ugh, not

Mathieu Guindon

9:37 PM

shoot, the single quote is missing

FreeMan

Looks nice, what is it?

Mathieu Guindon

the updated content for the examples

FreeMan

wait, that's not an Avalon demo, is it? he asks hopefully, with fingers and toes crossed

oh. :(.

still looks nice!

Mathieu Guindon

'cept my SQL Server instance is borked so... #TestingInProduction

FreeMan

meh, what else is production for?

Mathieu Guindon

9:41 PM

:)

Duga

10:08 PM

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder synchronized pull request #5479: Adding xmldocs for all annotations

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] codecov[bot] edited comment on pull request #5479: Adding xmldocs for all annotations

> # [Codecov](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/pull/5479?src=pr&el=h1) Report
> Merging [#5479](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/pull/5479?src=pr&el=desc) into [next](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/commit/41761857a177b20b7dc3f108789b20ed06205c8f&el=desc) will **increase** coverage by `8.94%`.
> The diff coverage is `85.45%`.

```diff
@@ Coverage Diff @@
## next #5479 +/- ##
==============================

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] codecov[bot] edited comment on pull request #5479: Adding xmldocs for all annotations

Mathieu Guindon

@Duga lol

Duga

> # [Codecov](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/pull/5479?src=pr&el=h1) Report
> Merging [#5479](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/pull/5479?src=pr&el=desc) into [next](https://codecov.io/gh/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/commit/41761857a177b20b7dc3f108789b20ed06205c8f&el=desc) will **increase** coverage by `8.94%`.
> The diff coverage is `85.45%`.

```diff
@@ Coverage Diff @@
## next #5479 +/- ##
==============================

Duga

10:29 PM

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] build for commit 4bde4a8f on unknown branch: AppVeyor build succeeded

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