VBA Rubberducking

Duga

00:02

RELOAD!

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] 1 opened issue. 4 issue comments.

[Zomis/FactorioMods] 10 commits. 846 additions. 684 deletions.

[Minesweeper] Games Played: 34, Bombs Used: 27, Moves Performed: 4831, New Users: 4

the VBE - it's right for me

02:03

i now understand why wireframing tools are pervasively used in web design

css is so painful to work with it is impossible to get even a rough version of an idea down quickly

Feeds

03:32

"I've traveled here from the year 2020 to bring you this vaccine!"

the VBE - it's right for me

05:14

@Feeds wow this actually made me cry a little

it's so...true

FreeMan

10:51

True indeed. "We have a vaccine coming! Just wait, we'll all be safe then!" "Well, the vaccine is here, and everyone should take it, but you're still not safe."

When will it end...

@this oh, yeah, sorry, you're right. I had a sip of the kool aid. Thanks for pulling me back from the brink

this

12:09

@FreeMan am I only one bothered by the fact that whenever a kid says "I'm thristy", they are in danger of being hit by bricks or beams or whatever it is when the big red pitcher guy barges in?

FreeMan

probably

this

won't anyone think of the children?!?

FreeMan

12:25

no

this

Hot take: anyone who drinks kool-aid endorses wanton murder of children.

FreeMan

12:47

lol

this

13:54

I am trying to find a old article that warns against use of Erl - I want to say that it was recommended against using it because there are conditions where it may not behave as expected and that can lead to surprises. But I can't find that article. Does anyone else know?

FreeMan

The use of Earl Grey, however, is fully supported.

Vogel612

note that it can lead to delayed sleep cycles, especially when used late in the day

don't make your CPUs work overtime :)

FreeMan

note 2: Sleep() is not guaranteed to be accurate

Mathieu Guindon

14:46

@this IIRC it was a SO answer by Comintern

wtf, I can't seem to find it anywhere

this

maybe it's a mass hallucination event?

I did indeed think it was a SO post (but wasn't sure if it was comintern or thunderframe)

Vogel612

I also recall an article like that

this

and nope, haven't found it. It does not help that erlang gets in the way

Mathieu Guindon

"erl" yields zero results when filtered for Cominterns' user ID

I have this one: stackoverflow.com/a/41002482/1188513

Vogel612

could it be that it was an article by wayne?

Mathieu Guindon

14:59

[vba] is:answer "Erl" -> 14 results

this

@Vogel612 at least not on his website (searched erl site:everythingaccess.com, no good result)

Duga

15:56

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] DavidS-BDO added label support to issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] DavidS-BDO opened issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

> Microsoft Defender SmartScreen blocked the download flagging the file as 'could harm your device'.

Additionally, a few other authorities flag it as well: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b16b65e5120fad2095e97f5fe1cfac73d7668c102c0a182ce544868c0c75a0a3/details.

FreeMan

@Duga #NotTheFirstTime mumblemumblemumble

this

IMNSHO, Antivirus is the virus.

IvenBach

What about RD does it consider to be harmful?

this

most likely just because it's new

AV usually dislike new things.

even if all you did was change a byte in the .exe / .dll file, AV gets all huffy, complaining "that's not how it works!"

IvenBach

16:12

> File is not signed.

this

even if it was signed, AV still will complain. AIUI, Mat once bought a certificate only to see AV complaining anyway just because it's new

IvenBach

That's unfortunate

this

8 mins ago, by this

IMNSHO, Antivirus is the virus.

IvenBach

Is there an upcoming release for RD? I've seen a few merges the last couple of weeks.

this

It already happened. That's why the reports.

FreeMan

16:24

@IvenBach 2.5.2.1

IvenBach

:derp:

3 Days late. Worse than usual.

this

hey, better 3 days later than never!

FreeMan

You miss a day, you miss a lot!

IvenBach

Not surprising considering I merge upstream/next whenever I want the latest-n-greatest.

Duga

17:07

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder created comment on issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

> Thanks for the heads up!

This is a recurring and frankly extremely annoying behavior from AV software, that IMO is massively hurting OSS as a whole. If I recall correctly the last Rubberduck build I bothered to get white-listed was v1.4.3, back in 2015. The white-listing process ("just send us an email sent from a corporate email account") disgusted me so much, I consider anti-virus companies and their bloated software little more than a giant scam.

As you know this is open-source softwa

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] daFreeMan created comment on issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

> If the AV is actually preventing installation with no option to bypass, you may want to wait a couple of days and try again.

On occasion, I've had the installer flagged by our corporate AVs (yes, at one time, IT had 3 (three!) different AV apps installed on our machines). Either I've stuck with an older pre-release build until a new one was released (often within days), or I simply tried again the next day and it installed without complaint.

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] retailcoder created comment on issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

> Note that it's 4 providers **out of 68**, and the fact that we're using an InnoSetup installer script **alone** accounts for over 48% of the "threat" rating. Consider the alternative: we could burn $1,250 for an InstallShield license just so antivirus providers stop telling people we're dangerous, and then we'd be distributing the _exact same software_ and none of these providers would be flagging it.

See how it's a scam?

Mathieu Guindon

I hate antivirus. It's mutual.

@IvenBach oh hi!

this

17:25

You know, I bet that if Rubberduck shipped with ads for facebook, they'd probably say it was A-OK

3

Mathieu Guindon

17:45

the $1K+ InstallShield license that would eliminate that false-flagging is seriously infuriating

Cynet malicious score: 100

ffs

this

hmm.... is it because we changed the installer?

meaning, if we had green-released without altering the installer would it have been less obnoxious?

Mathieu Guindon

I don't think so. Merely having an innosetup installer script gets you flagged.

it's all about corporatism and $$$

this

do we know if there's an alternative that won't get flagged? WiX for instance?

feels like he just dropped the Voldemort's name

FreeMan

The-Installer-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

Mathieu Guindon

IIRC we did try WiX at one point... IIRC that would mean going back to having a VBAx86 installer download, a VBAx64 installer download, and then a VB6x86 installer download.

lovely UX

this

17:55

isn't it The-Installer-That-Must-Not-Be-Used?

Yeah, they did finally get around to provide a graphical bootstrapper

But, I am worried that if we use the bootstrapper, it'll just put us back to square one because malicious code!!!

Mathieu Guindon

and it's not exactly effort-free either

this

You understated that just a little teensy.

I wonder if it's actually less scary to author our own installer....

FreeMan

says the man who struggled to (re)learn Pascal to build the current mouse trap...

this

relearn? That implies that man knew Pascal beforehand.

~~hmm or maybe we're doing it wrong. Take out all the stupid pascal script, just install the files to a temporary location and then at end of install, run a .exe program to do the actual installing.~~

~~HHICB?~~

stop drinking kool-aid, this

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] DavidS-BDO closed issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] DavidS-BDO created comment on issue #5762: Latest release (v2.5.2.5906) has been flagged as malicious.

> Perfect. That all makes sense. Thanks for the color.

I will wait for more downloads before trying again on my end. I am dealing with a corporate AV that tends to be very strict.

FreeMan

18:06

@this hence (re) learn... I wasn't sure which it was

this

Never programmed in Pascal before that.

Learnt that it was as horrid as advertised.

It seems to me that all programming languages from that era had one thing in common; they love being inconsistent.

Mathieu Guindon

back then languages had a heart. nowadays everything is cleansed, robotically consistent. WHERE IS THE SOUL?!!

mansellan

AV and smartscreen really need to learn how to check GH provenance more intelligently. Especially smartscreen, now that they are from the same. damn. company...

Mathieu Guindon

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

this

x2

@MathieuGuindon lol

FreeMan

18:13

@MathieuGuindon umm... there go all our complaints about VBA...

Mathieu Guindon

shhh

lol

this

VBA's a mangly ugly dog but aw, look at this fella. Just can't say no to a sad face like that.

FreeMan

ha

Duga

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] DippingToes starred us

3

FreeMan

@Duga is that like Dippin' Dots?

Mathieu Guindon

18:21

@this definitely an underdog =)

"The little toy language that could"

Oh wow I almost missed that notification - we got a $50 donation today!

3

> Thank you very much for all your efforts made in the matter!

mansellan

RadBasic failed it's kickstarter

Mathieu Guindon

and another $25 yesterday

this

it seems like it just previewed few days ago

Mathieu Guindon

what happens to the $20K then?

mansellan

@MathieuGuindon Doesn't get collected

Mathieu Guindon

18:30

yikes

this

yeah, all or nothing, basically

mansellan

yeah... iiuc, a lot of people set a modest target, then "stretch goals" for extra benefits. odd that he didn't...

Mathieu Guindon

> It is a shame we couldn't reach this crowdfunding goal, but project don't stop here. I want to see RAD Basic going alive and a lot of people have contact me for don't giving up.

As we could see, this failure makes you rethink how this project. I will change to funding full development process, to a iterative process, finding a way to get funding in a monthly basis.

So, I'm preparing a Patreon page for all of you who want to continue collaborating in RAD Basic. I will share with you ASAP (next hours??).

mansellan

I don't think he has a USP since twinBASIC...

Mathieu Guindon

USP?

this

18:35

unique selling proposition

Mathieu Guindon

oh

this

but didn't he get gui already?

Mathieu Guindon

yeah Wayne kinda threw them a wrench there

mansellan

@this unclear how complete, none of the demos interact with his designer.

Mathieu Guindon

...another way of seeing it would be that it's sane competition that can only lift both projects

@mansellan the "this looks fake" pushback from the VB crowd didn't help either

this

18:38

@mansellan oh.... ^

yeah the images on the KS page gave me the impression that he had a functional designer

but I haven't seen any of the videos.

mansellan

yeah... I kinda hinted at that without outright calling it - thing is the demos did look fake. I think its most likely that the demos were just not as good as they could have been.

Didn't help that he was asked for a proof of concept (enough to compile hello world) but didn't provide it

I guess most engineers are not also salespeople...

still, he did get 184 backers, which is encouraging

Mathieu Guindon

@mansellan that would have gone a long way towards shutting down any "meh fake" attitude

mansellan

I don't think it was a scam, but couldn't prove it wasn't

features aside, wayne did a much better sales job - utterly convincing demos on YT, alpha builds, public preview...

Looks like attributes are imminent

Mathieu Guindon

19:04

does that mean tB has some kind of reflection API on the way?!

mansellan

hope so!

wayne did say he was thinking of reflection when he worked on the IDispatch stuff

Mathieu Guindon

tbh I'm starting to itch for a MSForms tB equivalent

VBMVVM isn't very fun to make with a single-file project, but having to run it as a standalone exe to test & debug is the killer

that said TextBoxPropertyBinding works both ways now

in principle

mansellan

Oh wow - RadBasic made it onto The Register. @WaynePhillipsEA you'd definitely get a story. Might be a double-edged sword though - lots of exposure but the comments will be brutal because everyone loves to hate on VB6...

None of the comments have picked up on tB yet

Mathieu Guindon

lol @ that heading

mansellan

ikr...

Mathieu Guindon

19:18

> There is, however, no word on how much it would cost to ensure it stayed dead.

mansellan

> everyone loves to hate on VB6

give me VB6 over javascript any day of the week...

Mathieu Guindon

> Bring your VB projects to 21th [sic] century

mansellan

that was a bit mean of them - he's not a native-English speaker

on the comments:

> All it really lacked was proper inheritance, strongly typed generics and the option to base collections at index zero instead of one.

so he's wrong on the last point, and the first 2 are/will be added by tB :-)

I just read all the current comments, quite surprising - yeah there are a few haters but also a lot of love / nostalgia and even some current VB6 devs in there.

Mathieu Guindon

20:04

just read them all too :) ...yeah, heaters gonna hate....

BigBen

20:26

MsgBox "On accepte avec les larmes aux yeux."
lol

Mathieu Guindon

:)

BigBen

question is reopened btw

Mathieu Guindon

wah already

@BigBen you're on it?

BigBen

As in writing an answer?

Mathieu Guindon

yeah

BigBen

20:28

um I probs need more detail lol

Further edits to better clarify exactly what you intend the function to output wouldn't hurt, but FYI I've voted to reopen regardless. If 2 other people agree, it'll reopen (further editing to clarify puts the odds on your side!). — Mathieu Guindon 15 mins ago

Mathieu Guindon

basically OP wants the two sets of 20 variables as Range parameters and be able to invoke it as a UDF - that means there probably needs to be a separate function to calculate & return the intermediate a1 and a0 values, but I lack the math-fu to tell what these functions should be called lol

(I think the 20 doesn't matter, but the code should probably validate that the two ranges are the same size)

BigBen

given how bored I am at regular work, maybe I can work on this

Mathieu Guindon

:)

BigBen

I think this can be all done with LINEST probably.

Are you sure you aren't reinventing the LINEST function? — BigBen 59 secs ago

Mathieu Guindon

Niiiiice!

Mathieu Guindon

20:55

damn that i tripped me up

For Each i In ... deserves a RD inspection

BigBen

Like seriously

Mathieu Guindon

> BAD DUCKY! Use i only if you must, and when you do, only in a For...Next loop.

BigBen

The mapped value could be the cell.Value though, or just Empty, or whatever, right.

Mathieu Guindon

hm that edit was uncalled for was it.. I just took OP's dict.Add i, i and inferred they meant to have the cell reference in the dictionary.. could be either way lol

BigBen

Yeah hard to know but at least the edit gets to OP's problem.

mansellan

21:00

@MathieuGuindon probably should allow j too, for one level of nesting. k, not so much...

heh, bonus points if teh duck can determine that j is being used for an inner loop :-)

Mathieu Guindon

That shouldn't be too hard, but I must not be nerd-sniped into implementing this... I extracted command classes and now the peek popup isn't showing up anymore unless it's invoked from the CE =(

mansellan

Mission Failed: Nerd-snipe Mug. Retry level?

BigBen

> The key is used to retrieve an individual item and is usually an integer or a string, but can be anything except an array.

@MathieuGuindon I may have undone your edit

Mathieu Guindon

21:19

all good

Mathieu Guindon

21:45

@mansellan github.com/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/issues/5763

mansellan

@MathieuGuindon ha - that's the same trick I use... I know something needs looking at, but I don't have time right now, so I raise an issue to track it. At work, I'm even mulling adding an empty repo for a lib I know we'll need, just so I can say it's "In Progress". (n/a here of course)

this

@MathieuGuindon ¿Where is Duga?

mansellan

(Fake Duga) github.com/rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck/issues/…

this

makes me wonder what's a good rule when there's too many nested loops. I easily can see 2 level as sensible. is 3 too much? 4 definitely.

mansellan

@this Duga went on her annual vacation. To Fiji, and she's very much enjoying the beach.

this

21:54

mansellan

Oooh... brain tickle.

Mathieu Guindon

@this i, j, k isn't unreasonable if you're making a 3D chess game :)

mansellan

tB feature request: object / collection initalizers. Too much?

@MathieuGuindon yah, I thought i, j because rows/columns. k is probably fine too, on short loops.

Mathieu Guindon

depends what it looks like I think

mansellan

@MathieuGuindon yep, syntax is everything...

this

21:58

See, if we go 3 levels, I'd want to reference a named variable

mansellan

@this I've seen k in the wild. It's a thing. I think it's ok.

Like Mat said, 3 dimensions.

l and beyond, hell no.

this

Lame:

For i = l To u
  For j = 0 To Foos(i).Count
    For k = 0 To Bars(i).Count
      Derp
    Next
  Next
Next

Better:

For i = l To u
  Dim Foo As Foo
  Set Foo = Foos(i)
  For j = 0 To Foo.Count
    Dim Bar As Bar
    Set Bar = Bars(j)
    For k = 0 To Bar.Count
    Next
  Next
Next

Mathieu Guindon

@mansellan what if we had a CodeMetricInspectionBase that would issue inspection results / warnings based on code metrics?

Procedure 'DoSomething' has a 'Nesting Levels' metric value of 147. Recommended value: <2.

And then there could be a setting for each "metric inspection" with default/configurable thresholds...

this

not sure that's much better because you still can easily make the mistake of referring to Bars(i) when it should be Bars(j)

mansellan

I do worry that I might be trying to turn tB into c# :/ I don't think that's what I'm doing, because the cool thing about tB is "unmanaged / native". Just trying to suggest lauguage level nicities from c# 9.

@MathieuGuindon Wow - that has potential!

Even more so with CPA

Mathieu Guindon

22:03

@this it's better because you kinda feel the urge to extract the body into its own scope :)

this

Just to point out, 147 probably means your nesting will wrap around because of >64 levels and limitation of 1024 character per line

mansellan

@this ROFL!!!

Mathieu Guindon

I had Cyclomatic Complexity for the metric in the draft lol

mansellan

Tried to ping Simon about Duga, but too old for auto-complete. Anyone remember his nick?

Mathieu Guindon

@Greger?

mansellan

22:07

forsberg

Mathieu Guindon

ah

this

@MathieuGuindon yeah, it's easier to pass as a parameter, which also helps with readability, too. By that reasoning, you could collapse all nested loops into a single level of loop.

Mathieu Guindon

the nesting becomes implicit then

this

yes and you can argue it's less readable because you now have 3 procedures each doing loops.

that is the part where LINQ start to look better.

mansellan

found it

@SimonForsberg Duga seems to be taking a break

Mathieu Guindon

22:14

if there's no auto-complete, I believe the user doesn't get a notification

unfortunately both Vogel and I have lost power-ping abilities now

> 772 downloads

M.Doerner

Over in chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/16134/…, where Simon regularly dwells, Duga works just fine.

this

@MathieuGuindon maybe now that we're past 666, smortscreen will smarten up

mansellan

@M.Doerner Hook issue here

?

M.Doerner

Investigating

mansellan

@MathieuGuindon hmm, #til

M.Doerner

22:24

Since yesterday 11PM, we get 500 responses from Duga.

The only two differences I can see between the RD hook and my personal Advent of Code 2020 hook, which is working fine, is the room id and the fact that there is a secret set for RD.

I have pinged Simon on the webhook issue.

With that, TTGTB.

mansellan

@this did you see the earlier chat about RadBasic?

Would love to get your perspective

I think you left before the publicity it got

Not sure how well known The Register is in the US (seems to get a bunch of traffic, but US is a lot bigger than UK) - in the UK most techs know / read it.

BigBen

22:45

I occasionally read The Register.

mansellan

@BigBen I'm not in any way affiliated, but I think I must have read it for at least 10 years. It's kinda the tabloid of IT internet news - easily digestible and lots of pictures. I tried Reddit and Slashdot, but they take concentration. The Reg is like an "IT snack".

And they seem to catch most relevant trends. Was surprised they found RadBasic - I think they maybe watch Kickstarter.

BigBen

23:20

lots of pictures is putting it lightly

mansellan

@BigBen Not for me - Firefox with many blockers of various types :-)

Pics for the story still come through, but the ad spots are just whitespace.

In their defense, I've seen much worse adtech on mainstream news sites.

Targeted ads are ruining the internet.

Hey @IvenBach

IvenBach

huh?

mansellan

How goes it?

this

I know about Register and don't read it regularly... sometime find it offputting because of their propensity to slant things for the outrage clickbaits. Haven't read through RadBasic yet

mansellan

@this Yep, unbiased is not their thing.

IvenBach

23:32

Currently messing around with a bit of python for editing excel files.

mansellan

@this But that's.. normal? Closest I've seen to unbiased is the BBC (they have a charter), but even they lean noticeably to the left.

@IvenBach Careful. Pythons are constriction predators. They will lie in wait until you are least suspecting, and then strangle all your hopes and dreams. They Excel at that.

IvenBach

It's mainly for me to go outside my Excel/VBA-landia/C# comfort zone and see something new.

I'm a bit surprised by my ability to figure out what I have so far.

mansellan

Don't be. You've grown.

IvenBach

I hope so.

All the effort and frustration to push past WTF-is-this confusion has been a constant companion the last couple years.

mansellan

Remember: every language is a different abstraction around the same thing. Underneath it all, it's 1s and 0s. And you've learnt a path into that. The others are not so different.

IvenBach

23:46

I still attribute a lot of progress I've made to the help everyone has offered here.

^^ That was a big step I had to make.

mansellan

Everyone gets help from somewhere or other. Inventions are rare.

IvenBach

Still don't really understand all the bits, but I know enough to know where to look for what I haven't yet learned.

> Use the search.

mansellan

@IvenBach That's what we all do - you're at max level!

IvenBach

I really want to outgrow just the Excel-jockey stuff I do.

mansellan

Everything else is "tricks" - you've learnt the secret.

IvenBach

23:50

Poking around with python is showing me I can probably hack it together.

mansellan

You can

IvenBach

I want to learn more algorithm and actually understand BigO notation at a lower level.

mansellan

Heh... I have a book on notation, from a university course I bailed on.

Haven't needed it yet, other than a lift-elevator pitch

It sounds like you could pitch for non-Excel jobs (caveat, I'm not in SoCal)

IvenBach

Possibly.

Just when I see the list of reqs for dev work: SQL, Restful API, Django, Perl, Jenikins, ...

The vast majority is for things I don't know and haven't even touched.

mansellan

Oh, they're shopping lists...

They don't expect to get them all.

IvenBach

23:58

I don't even really feel entirely comfortable listing C# since half the time I lean heavily on the RD code base to know what to do.

mansellan

Wait, wut?

IvenBach

Excel, VBA, git. I've got those 3 understood.

mansellan

Open source is the most in-demand resume skill out there

IvenBach

I've not made any programs myself.

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