VBA Rubberducking

Duga

12:02 AM

REFRESH!

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] {issue_comments=2}

FreeMan

@Duga eh?

Vogel612

12:22 AM

@FreeMan Should you be mad enough to try it: Most languages limit the size of their arrays to 2^31 elements

Not that most machines let you allocate that much memory in the first place, but alas.

FreeMan

so realistically, the limit to the array size is the amount of memory that can be allocated. However, the "limited length" is referring to the fact that an array cannot be resized once declared, right? No C# equivalent to VBA's ReDim.

Vogel612

That tutorial also seems to be ... not quite technically correct most of the time. And the length limitation is usually not the thing that's annoying about arrays. More likely searching, deletion and sorting are the annoying parts.

@FreeMan Well ... VBA Arrays are arrays. Just a peculiar implementation

FreeMan

A) that's why I'm asking clarifications here ;) and B) it did mention others, like that.

Vogel612

but most commonly you can not resize arrays.

FreeMan

OK. Just one of those things that they say that makes me pause...

Vogel612

12:25 AM

On that note: Most languages do not have the capability of defining LBound and UBound on array types

FreeMan

It may not be 100% technically accurate (I'll get that sorted), but it does seem to resonate with me - it's making sense, so ima run with it.

Vogel612

I know for sure that Ada and VBA have that, but off the top of my head that's it.

FreeMan

Can you define an array in C# that starts at anything other than 0?

hence no need for LBound and UBound is simply .Count - 1...

Vogel612

@Vogel612 that limitation usually comes from the way indexers are implemented/

@FreeMan .Length, not .Count()

@FreeMan I do think I did just say that :D

FreeMan

see, just a technical issue to get ironed out. I know what to do, it'll just take a sec to figure out how...

Vogel612

12:29 AM

@FreeMan actually there's an interesting semantic difference... Length is immutable, Count can change (pretty easily). Compare also the notion of a List's Capacity.

Aaaaand I'm infodumping, because it's late ....

Night y'all :D

FreeMan

lol. What's the best way of learning? repetition! What's the best way of learning? repetition! What's the best way of learning? repetition!

night!

little things, like For Each item in collection becomes foreach (<type> item in collection). Just little syntax stuff...

brain shutdown. Nightall

IvenBach

1:16 AM

@FreeMan once you know one programming language it is easier to relate it to the next one you learn. Keep going.

Indexers had me confused for a good while since VBA has nothing directly similar.

Hosch250

2:29 AM

@FreeMan Not necessarily. What if both are null?

@SonGokussj4 Love that area myself. It and Norway is about the only place in Europe I'd ever be interested in visiting.

@SonGokussj4 That's a pretty big one. I'm near the top of tornado alley. My parents lived at the edge of the city bubble so storms always got pushed north/south of the cities, so we didn't really get them. I'm 30-45 minutes north of the city now, so I'll get them more, likely.

Before, we rarely went downstairs for tornados (we didn't have a basement anyway...), but now I'll have to start. I only have a half basement, though, so I'm still screwed if I get a direct hit.

@mansellan That's a good article.

Interestingly enough, there's also F*, which is even "more" pure: fstar-lang.org

FreeMan

11:10 AM

@Hosch250 does null == null return True? It doesn't in SQL, which is why you have to compare WHERE column is NULL instead of WHERE column = NULL.

FreeMan

11:28 AM

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

the duck still won't parse this code which means that I can't Refactor | Encapsulate Field which means I have to do it by hand. :(

#enablemylazy

Ah! It does parse on the office machine, so I'll do it there

hi @MathieuGuindon! waves

Mathieu Guindon

hi!

FreeMan

Is there some if (windowsUserId == FreeMan && machineClass == laptop) {} code buried somewhere in the guts of the Duck, and my mission is to learn enough C# to root it out?

Are y'all trying to help me out?

Mathieu Guindon

LOL

FreeMan

I am wondering... :/

Mathieu Guindon

You got the same build/version on both?

FreeMan

11:39 AM

of the duck, yes.

I'm pretty sure that Windows updates are applied equally, too.

Office, though, is different on this new laptop, I do believe

Version 2.5.2.5951
OS: Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.18363.0, x64
Host Product: Microsoft Office 2016 x64
Host Version: 16.0.5164.1000
Host Executable: MSACCESS.EXE

From the office desktop machine. (gimme a sec...)

Version 2.5.2.5951
OS: Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19042.0, x64
Host Product: Microsoft Office x64
Host Version: 16.0.13127.21668
Host Executable: MSACCESS.EXE

from the new laptop

However, I was running Office 2016 on the old laptop. (where the issue was originally reported from)

it's happened across a variety of RD builds, initially reported on only Excel, but has now crept into Access.

hrm, different Win builds, too.

Slightly different topic: In my data I'm given one field with LastName, FirstName. In my class that contains the data, I need to separate that out into distinct firstName and lastName fields.

It would make more sense to have a FirstName method that returns the first name instead of making it a property with a read-only Get, right?

though the end result would be the same...

Mathieu Guindon

Is the data clean? It rarely is..

FreeMan

11:56 AM

probably not... If I don't find a comma, I guess I'll just return FullName.

That'll look snazzy in the email being sent out: "Dear LastName FirstName LastName FirstName..."

:)

it's only going to employees, they don't count for nutin' round here anyway...

Actually, the data is output from an EMR, so it should actually be reasonably clean - I'm reasonably certain that it requires something in both first & last name columns, but I don't have access to the original system, so I can't confirm 100%

and, one would assume (with all associated risk) that it will put a comma between the last & first names, since it's a defined report...

In a class, if I'm storing data, then I provide a property Get/Let to access it. If it's doing something with data, then I provide a method to access it.

</rubberducking>

Vogel612

12:37 PM

@FreeMan null == null is true, yes.

FreeMan

huh...

Vogel612

just be happy you're not doing JS ...

NaN == NaN // false
null == false // false
!!null == false // true

FreeMan

from everything everyone here says, I most certainly am!

Vogel612

(FWIW the first one is really not JSs fault, but eh)

FreeMan

wait... if null == false is false, then !null == false should be true, yet, !!null = false is true?

I've got an ice cream headache...

Vogel612

12:41 PM

no, it"s fancier.

FreeMan

how do you "not" null, anyway?

Vogel612

using ! coerces the operand to boolean.

and !null is of course true

FreeMan

Yeah... I'm just going to pretend we didn't have this conversation...

Vogel612

also, more fun with bottom values:

FreeMan

shakes head, walks away...

Vogel612

12:43 PM

null == undefined // true
null === undefined // false

which of course means that: !null === !undefined is true

FreeMan

♫I'm not listening...♫ `<sticks fingers in ears>la la la... la la la la.... la la la...

Honestly, I don't WTF very often, but W. T. F. were they ~~thinking~~ smoking?

Vogel612

it makes sense as soon as you realize that in JS types are mostly a suggestion

FreeMan

no. wait. don't answer that.

@Vogel612 and people complain about implicit Variant in VBA...

Vogel612

well, guess why typescript is such a huge ecosystem these days.

a few years back there used to be a new "*script" that transpiled to js every few weeks

and of course they all were mostly mutually incompatible, but all went through the same toolchain (huzzah for babel and webpack)

this

1:42 PM

@FreeMan remember that the null in C# is not NULL in SQL. A null pointer just is basically Const NULL As LongPtr = &H0

which is why you can do null = null in that context.

FreeMan

Yeah... gotta break that SQL NULL is _everything_ NULL thought process. I'll get there...

Quick code review:

Public Function FinalEmail(ByRef workingEmail As String) As Boolean

  FinalEmail = True
  If this.DevelopmentMode Then
    workingEmail = Tools.ThisUserName & EMAIL_DOMAIN
  ElseIf Len(this.WorkEmail) > 0 Then
    workingEmail = this.WorkEmail
  ElseIf Len(this.PersonalEmail) > 0 Then
    workingEmail = this.PersonalEmail
  Else
    workingEmail = Tools.ThisUserName & EMAIL_DOMAIN
    FinalEmail = False
  End If

End Function

is doing too much, isn't it?

I should have a FinalEmail that determines what address to use and a HaveValidEmail that returns the boolean. right?

the side-effecting ByRef is annoying because I'm using it for it's boolean purposes where I don't actually need to get the actual finalEmail result.

this

so in the case it's False, you do what?

Vogel612

why does your object isntance know whether it's in development mode?

That sounds like something that's not the concern of a user, but instead the module where you send emails

FreeMan

False is used elsewhere to override the subject line, the body & the recipient. i.e. if I don't get an email in either work or personal, someone screwed up on data entry, and a manager is notified.

the object knows because the object is the one that creates the subject line & body.

Vogel612

ew

unless.... that's not a user, but a message

FreeMan

1:57 PM

correct - that's part of an EmailMessage class, not a User class.

this

FWIW, this really wants to be named TryGet...

FreeMan

sorry, was patently obvious to me - y'all can't read my mind from over there?

this

and to be honest, the FinalEmail is kind of confusing.

FreeMan

@this TryGet implies "return a changed parameter if available, else return False because we failed.

this

Correct.

Vogel612

1:59 PM

no

FreeMan

OK, it's a review on the specific question at hand, not the whole bloody thing!!! :)

Vogel612

TryGet implies an out ref

FreeMan

ah, gotcha, @Vogel612

this

The thing, though is that you're actually returning 2 piece of data

Vogel612

it's basically a shorthand for a tuple return value where the first element is a boolean and the second is the out value.

FreeMan

2:01 PM

I understand @this' TryGet, but I'm finding its use awkward, and I'm thinking breaking it up into GetEmail and DoWeHaveAnEmailToBeginWith would make usage easier

this

Either Public Function FinalEmail() As FinalEmailData or Public Sub FinalEmail(ByRef FinalEmail As Boolean, ByRef WorkingEmail As String)

FreeMan

@Vogel612 so public void TryGet(outEmail, outVaild) (more or less

this

no.

by definition a TryGet.... should return a bool

FreeMan

ah. makes sense. TryGet is what I wrote, I just didn't name it well.

Vogel612

Public Function TryGetFinalEmail(ByRef outEmail) As Boolean

^ that would be the TryGet version

this

2:03 PM

but because you say you use the workingEmail even if FinalEmail returns false, it makes it weird.

since the convention is that if it's false, it's not safe to access the workingEmail parameter.

FreeMan

However, I'm finding the actual usage awkward because there are places where I want to find out if I've got a valid address, but don't care what it actually is. So, breaking the functions out into WhatsTheEmailAddress and DoIHaveAValidEmail would make useage easier

Vogel612

the whole activity flow seems a bit ... borked is what we're trying to say, I think

FreeMan

yeah. I need to break it up into 2 methods.

this

Yes I think that's better.

FreeMan

(And, I'll rename FinalEmail) :)

Vogel612

2:04 PM

@FreeMan Why are these places different is the very interesting question there, then :)

FreeMan

because the SubjectBuilder and BodyBuilder functions need to know if the address is valid - if not, they tag on additional info. However, they don't actually care who it's going to.

cringes, awaiting additional ~~bashing~~ critique

:)

Seriously, I do appreciate the feedback!

The best part of being the Lone Ranger is that there's nobody to micromanage how I do it.

Vogel612

If the address is not valid in the first place, what are you doing building a body and subject?

FreeMan

The worst part of being the Lone Ranger is that there's nobody to tell me I'm being stupic.

The email still goes out, just to a management address.

Sure, probably not the best method ATM, but it's the quick/easy way for "oh, BTW, we needed this in production last week".

Vogel612

I assume that management wants that email as it would be sent to a valid address + the "wrong" information, right?

FreeMan

right. That way they can hunt down the person/people failing to properly collect info

Vogel612

2:08 PM

yea, that makes sense (~sighs in management expectations)

FreeMan

yeah... They've got MAs doing data collection. They're smart, just not so much computer smart, and, well, sometimes they ~~slack~~ forget.

OK, thanks guys. MUCH appreciated! Gotta run to a meeting.

IvenBach

2:25 PM

Late to the discussion. Sounds like you can use HasValidEmail with a Boolean return that branches into SendEmailToRecipient(…) for the true condition and SendMissingInfoAlertToManager(BuildFieldsForEmailAlert(…)) when false. It’s better describing the expectations for what should/is-about-to occur.

Isolation coding is hard…

Quick to stagnate and you don’t realize it till later.

this

2:41 PM

^

IvenBach

3:16 PM

I thought about this some more on the drive in to work. If you have everything in classes already you could write a FooEmailValidator class and tests that go along with it.

This way you can check each condition and confirm you will have the expected results when execution occurs.

Iven.EngageLurkMode();

HackSlash

10:51 PM

Have a good weekend, quackbats.

Feeds

11:30 PM

Duga

11:47 PM

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck]: 1363 stars vs. [decalage2/oletools]: 1621 stars

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