VBA Rubberducking

Duga

00:03

RELOAD!

[MDoerner/AdventOfCode2020] 2 commits. 399 additions. 1 deletion.

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] 2 issue comments.

[Minesweeper] Games Played: 92, Bombs Used: 69, Moves Performed: 13305, New Users: 13

the VBE - it's right for me

02:25

@this ooooh that is bad then

@Vogel612 I wish a wasn't a "web developer" but alas it is the best option for intranet service for some reason :/

I honestly don't understand how it wouldn't be very easy for MS to set up a framework to do using Winforms or WPF rather than a web browser as the frontend

especially if it is on a network hosted by windows server

@SonGokussj4 idk if technically breaking site rules but I upvoted for the good cause

if I am I will actually read it and spend 10 seconds confirming it is good first :)

Duga

07:01

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] kangli-bionic starred us

3

Son Goku ssj4

07:45

If it's not good, don't upvote it! :-D But anyway, thanks.

Duga

08:02

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] Talorthain created comment on issue #5769: Show Modules of Locked Projects in Code Explorer

> Hi,

Just to add, and I apologise if this is already a know, I don't even see the file project if locked.

[cid:3b04c6f9-5e26-4da2-af49-7d29723ec62f]

If they can be listed with option to unlock, that would be great.

(This file doesn't use the add-in)

Regards

Anthony Taylor
________________________________
From: Mathieu Guindon ***@***.***>
Sent: 10 May 2021 22:23
To: rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck ***@***.***>
Cc: Anthony ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***>
Subject: Re: [rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck

the VBE - it's right for me

08:13

@SonGokussj4 I have seen enough of your comments here to assume it :)

quick question for whoever:

if I have a set of pages represented by PageViewModel and I have a mediator class BookReaderViewModel that is responsible for telling the view which PageViewModel will be used for rendering does the PageViewModel need to know that it is the one being actively displayed or not?

Vogel612

11:02

@theVBE-it'srightforme what is the benefit for the PageViewModel to know about it's display status?

that's the pertinent question. Usually the ViewModel would just "serve the View".

Sometimes to reduce load you'd want the ViewModel to cache some data and regularly refresh that. Doing that while the View is not displayed makes no sense

but that's basically an edge-case

and if you do nonsense like that, the answer is obvious.

Pochmurnik

Hello

FreeMan

howdy, @Pochmurnik!

Pochmurnik

I have two sheets, Sheet "Start" containing CheckBoxes, enabling checkbox makes onther sheet visible, disabling make it hidden

screen flicker

I have suspicions it's because revealed sheet becomes active for a moment

Can I somehow remove this flickering?

Vogel612

11:18

avoid making the sheet active?

Pochmurnik

pastebin.com/tbnfgT7z

I want avoid flickering, no matter how (to be honest I don't know if this sheet activation is the reason of blinking)

Pochmurnik

11:58

After setting Visible to True this sheet is visible for a moment (some columns and other elements blink), then again I see "Start" sheet

FreeMan

set .visible = false, do your work, then .visible = true

Pochmurnik

visible of what? of "Start" or "Other" sheet? "Start" is something like menu, it should not disappear, "Start" contains a lot of checkboxes mapped with other sheets (sheets representing months)

I work on a current month, rest of sheets is hidden

Pochmurnik

12:31

mrexcel.com/board/threads/…

"It looks to me like excel does a screen refresh when a page becomes visible. Any sheet, not just the ones with shapes (a chart is also a shape). Even on an empty worksheet you can see the selected cell flicker briefly. It's just that it is more a lot more noticeable on sheets that have shapes on them because it looks like all shapes get repainted. I'm not sure there is much that can be done about that."

Vogel612

12:46

you might be able to avoid it by setting Application.ScreenUpdating to False for that change and then back to True, but that sounds like a bandaid for a problem that shouldn't even be there in the first place ....

Pochmurnik

I tried that at the beginning

Doesn't work

I think I can live with that flickering, but what a life it is...

FreeMan

13:06

@Pochmurnik I was intending Application.Visible, though that may freak people out as Excel disappears from the screen entirely, then reappears. Application.ScreenUpdating would be a more likely candidate...

Duga

15:34

[rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] Talorthain created comment on issue #5769: Show Modules of Locked Projects in Code Explorer

> Hi,

The add-in is late bound, because it is replaced when the file is opened, to ensure the user has the most recent version.

If all projects could be listed (not parsed) then I would select and unlock.

Regards

Anthony Taylor
________________________________
From: Mathieu Guindon ***@***.***>
Sent: 10 May 2021 22:23
To: rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck ***@***.***>
Cc: Anthony ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***>
Subject: Re: [rubberduck-vba/Rubberduck] Show Modules of Locked Projects in Code Explor

this

17:33

@Duga hmm is that a GH or a Duga feature, scrubbing out the email addresses?

While that's kinda of improvement still would be nice to stop quoting the rest of the email messages. Can't have it turn into a NNTP of ye olde days.

Mathieu Guindon

it looks like GH did it

and yeah

this

printing email addresses was a bright idea.

only took them what? a year or two to realize it?

Mathieu Guindon

#BetterLateThanNever

:)

this

yo, got enough email addresses for our viagra sponsors? Yep, we can start scrubbing it and claim plausible deniability

Mathieu Guindon

18:05

If (a = b) Then:
    frmSupprimer.Caption = "Supprimer un matériel"
    'frmSupprimer.UserForm_Initialize ("Matériel")
    frmSupprimer.Show
End

would it be "too specific" to inspect for that?

basically locate : immediately following a Then, and flagging the colon as a no-op conditional expression (making the intended conditional block be unconditional)

2nd time this week I see an End statement that intends to close a block on SO

HOLY MOLLY not sure what's going on but my current VBA project (a small macro) is parsing at the speed of light, it's unreal - parser performance is getting seriously impressive.

Pochmurnik

@FreeMan I saw this solution, but I think in my case it will look awkward, thank you for sugestion

I think I will leave it for some time

this

18:32

@MathieuGuindon why would it be too specific? I think it's abhorrent.

Mathieu Guindon

arguably that specific case should be already covered by the "empty If block" inspection

although, it's not block syntax, but the block syntax is clearly intended

this

but what hint level is that?

If it's not an error, then it should be.

Mathieu Guindon

warning

this

because an empty If block is maybe funny but a colon'd If block is downright misleading.

Mathieu Guindon

yeah

this

18:35

so the inspection for colon'd block would be an error

Mathieu Guindon

agreed

also the "invert condition" quickfix wouldn't be applicable here

this

^

Mathieu Guindon

maybe that's better served with code path analysis flagging a no-op statement as conditional

(and thus indirectly marking the rest as unconditional, hinting the user about something being off)

IDK

I mean there's the specific case of having a : token immediately following a Then token, but perhaps there's a more general thing we could be looking at that would pick it up while flagging other problematic things

this

hmm. yeah. a : on the end of hte line is suspicious

FreeMan

Yeah, nobody wants a blocked colon.

6

shows self to the door. Logs out for the day

this

18:40

lol

question: why is it a colon and not a colons?

@FreeMan is impressed by FreeMan's ability to log out his computer at a distance after having shown himself out of the door

We don't want to flag this:

ErrHandler:

but we do want to flag this:

ErrHandler::

by same token: Debug.Print "derp":: Debug.Print "doh"

thinking the general rule would be a colon at the end of a line containing code elements or has nothing in between itself and the next colon.

Mathieu Guindon

19:22

If an inspection flags colon-terminated empty instructions then :: should be flagged regardless of where it's at on a line of code

but yeah that's the more generalized inspection I was looking for!

this

and I think in all the cases those should be an error severity level.

in case like ErrHandler:: it's probably harmless but it's downright dangerous with Then:

I don't think we have that problem with say, Do: or Loop:.... right?

i guess because If...Then is the only thing that can be either a single line or a block.

Son Goku ssj4

19:38

@Duga Matt? This has been bugging me a long time. :-) How do you do those statistics. Is there some kind of "sending data from my PC to the internet" thing in your Battleships VBA code? :)

Mathieu Guindon

19:59

@SonGokussj4 that would be configured with the @Duga chatbot API.. Simon sent me a key for that at one point, but I didn't end up doing anything with it. There's no such code in Battleship (or Rubberduck, or anything I ever wrote), but it would be pretty innocuous, it's just a key/value counter; starting a new Battleship game could conceivably send a request to the API and then we would have "X new games started" or something. Perhaps even break it down by AI type for funsies.

Son Goku ssj4

(Don't worry, I wouldn't be offended :-) Just trying to understand)
So where @Duga gets those numbers? If you explained that I missed it completely, sorry.

mansellan

@this because it's one punctuation symbol. The dot is not called a colon, otherwise "." would be a colon, ":" would be colons, and ";" would be comma-colon :-)

@this brain-tickle, feature-request: an inspection for double-operators. Flag "++" and "--". Somewhat related

AFAICS, there are exactly zero useful situations for doing that in VBc

@MathieuGuindon Hmm, I would have hoped that the new statement would be terninated by the line break, so essentially no-op. Guessing that's not how VBx rolls...

Mathieu Guindon

20:15

@mansellan #FunFact: it's actually a "dot-comma" in French

mansellan

See, that's logical!

Mathieu Guindon

not claiming French has any logic to it lol. we say "ninety nine" as essentially... "four twenty ten nine"

BigBen

@MathieuGuindon point-virgule, man my French is rusty.

mansellan

quatra-vingt neuf (not googled, from school, almost certainly wrong!)

Mathieu Guindon

quatre-vingt dix neuf

and there's a whole bunch of rules about whether and where you put the dash and nobody ever remembers them

mansellan

20:18

wasn't that far off counts it as a win

Mathieu Guindon

:)

BigBen

only ten off

mansellan

off-by-10 error :-)

M.Doerner

In German, a colon is simply a Doppelpunkt, i.e. a double-dot.

mansellan

again, logical :-)

M.Doerner

20:20

Still, a semicolon is a Semikolon, which makes no sense if there is no Kolon.

mansellan

Although I prefer Daftpunkt

2

Mathieu Guindon

@SonGokussj4 say you've made a Pong game, and for every new game you POST to some URL with a payload that says "starting a new Pong game", and every time a player beats the computer you POST to that URL with a payload that says "Pong computer took a beating". At the end of the day @Duga aggregates the payloads and posts "x new Pong games started" and "Pong computer took a beating n times"

basically the URL you POST to is a @Duga API endpoint

Son Goku ssj4

That I do understand.

Mathieu Guindon

that's ...all there is to it :)

mansellan

I guess semi-colon has some logic to it. A comma is like half a full stop, so a comma with a dot over it is like half as strong as a dot with a dot over it.

Son Goku ssj4

20:21

But you said there is nothing in the excel VBA project (battleship game) I've downloaded

Mathieu Guindon

there isn't? the stats posted are for Simon's Minesweeper game

Son Goku ssj4

Okay. I'm thinking I'm an idiot....

Mathieu Guindon

20 hours ago, by Duga

[Minesweeper] Games Played: 92, Bombs Used: 69, Moves Performed: 13305, New Users: 13

don't worry :)

Son Goku ssj4

Simon's Minesweeper game != Your battleship game...

Mathieu Guindon

^

Son Goku ssj4

20:23

facepalm

Well, I had my bright moment through today's morning. It finally caught me up. I'll finish my wine and will be getting to bed...
Sry about that Mug :-)

Mathieu Guindon

21:12

hey, like I said, no worries!

mansellan

Heh, not really hung out on VBF before tB landed. They seem to have some fierce wars on there..

Looks like they've also had plenty of people say "I'll rewrite VB, gimme 6 months". No wonder they're disillusioned...

IvenBach

21:33

@SonGokussj4 you’re in good company as you’re surrounded by them.

this

@mansellan yet the anatomical colon has only one hole while the grammatical colon has 2 dots. Something to be said about anal retentive grammarians, I suppose.

@mansellan they should get in touch with guy who wants to write a OS using VBA. HHICB?

mansellan

@this gimme teh codez!!!

this

@MathieuGuindon thus, you can trade in a cent for 90 new cents

mansellan

Tempted to write a tB issue asking what the MVP is for v1. IMO, that's not anything GUI-related. It's fixing all the outstanding syntax issues. After the MVP (maybe 1.1?), bring on 64-bit, that's something VB6 couldn't do.

FMM, GUI can happen in v2...

Mathieu Guindon

hm not just syntax issues

this

21:44

why MVP?

Mathieu Guindon

everything that crashes the compiler, all the restarts, ...

mansellan

yeah... stability needed for sure.

this

wait, we aren't talking about model-view-presenter, are we?

Vogel612

minimum viable product

mansellan

nooo... minimum viable product

Mathieu Guindon

21:45

~~the minimum viable product one~~ yeah

M.Doerner

^too fast

mansellan

the minimum thing that adds value

this

lol was confused since you mentioned "not anything GUI-related"

Mathieu Guindon

if it's a pleasant dev experience, it doesn't matter what the limitations are I think

this

I'd argue 64-bit has to be there, though. If you can't use it for Office Add-ins, you lose lot of potential customers, IMO.

Mathieu Guindon

21:46

and that

mansellan

To me, that's being able to code any/all legacy code (except UI) in VSC, and know that it will work the same.

Mathieu Guindon

but it's fine if that's just the paid license version (x64 I mean)

mansellan

@this but that's how it is right now. Minimum implies "current, but improved"

Not saying that 64-bit shouldn't be next ;-)

Mathieu Guindon

stability issues fixed is viable

mansellan

^

Mathieu Guindon

21:48

everything else can come after

this

not sure I follow, though. VBA7 is 64-bit capable right now.

Mathieu Guindon

IDK I thought I saw Wayne say x64 would be the commercial one

this

if all you were shooting for is a parity with VB6, then sure. just the stability.

mansellan

Yeah but tB doesn't really have integration story for VBA just yet. I'm sure it will, but now it's about VB6.

this

yes that's my understanding but that's still a MVP --- can't charge money for unfinished product?

that's where I disagree

Mathieu Guindon

21:49

I guess the question is more "at what point do you call it v1.0"

this

twitter.com/WaynePhillipsEA/status/1389607860338896896

mansellan

Oh wait, not suggesting money can be asked before x64. Just v1.

Mathieu Guindon

@this wah nice!

mansellan

x64 is a unique selling point, that's where the $$$ start appearing

this

Exactly. Thus why I think 64-bit is the MVP

actually both the MVP and the USP

Because I think office add-ins is much bigger niche to fill in, far bigger than re-compiliing VB6 apps.

mansellan

21:51

If tB were to disappear tomorrow, not getting to x64, but feature-complete for non-UI x86, that would still have value.

So that adds value. Perhaps not the dream, but value.

this

not as an Office add-ins, no. As a standalone EXEs, I suppose, yes.

mansellan

M is "minimal" - the smallest unit that adds some value.

this

But to my thinking is that if it's just a standalone EXEs why not python? why not rust? why not C#? why not C?

Office add-ins? Now that's value.

mansellan

Because maybe people don't know those langs.

the VBE - it's right for me

@Vogel612 Basically because I don't know how to apply the styling for a selected page without the ViewModel telling the View it is selected.

this

21:54

Maybe not but I doubt that's determinative in which lang gets used for an EXE project.

mansellan

Why not C# - because huge runtime ;-)

this

LOL, ofc.

Vogel612

@theVBE-it'srightforme why is that the specific view model that tells your view what is selected and not the "mediator" as you called it?

this

My point is that those already has existing framework and everything else you need to get your problem solved.

the VBE - it's right for me

@Vogel612 it is not

the mediator does tell viee

this

21:56

with tB you get COM ecosystem.... and that's it. As an EXE project, that's not nearly as valuable as an Office add-in (which must work in COM world)

the VBE - it's right for me

but I want to apply styling to the tab corresponding with the currently selected page and couldnt figure out how without the page VM

mansellan

Agreed. But look at it this way - I'm a VB6 developer who wants to write a non-UI lib for VB6/VBA-32 devs to use. I could use the VB6 UI, or C++, but neither of those would feel like home. So tB, soon, might be. That's value.

the VBE - it's right for me

maybe it is just an issue with not knowing razor/html well enough

mansellan

But I think we agree - a big arena for tB will be COM addins, and for that, x64 is essential.

this

which sounds like a very narrow scope, especially if you factor in the fact that more and more people are moving to 64-bit Office and thus require 64-bit VBa.

mansellan

21:57

^

the VBE - it's right for me

it didn't seem like the page VM "should" know whether it was selected or not

mansellan

So... 64-bit is part of the MVP

this

to me, an Access guy, yeah

mansellan

I think for Wayne too - he was very keen to get COM demos up.

this

I can see why a VB6 dev might disagree and that's cool. But I'd push back that if 32-bit is all they care about, then they would be more comfortable in VB6 than in tB with no UI support (yet)

mansellan

21:59

yeah, that's fair.

this

Hmm, in fact, I'd argue that if they want to bring forward their VB6, they probably will have to be able to do it in 64-bit and therefore, be able to compile that app in 64-bit

I wouldn't just take my existing VB6 app and just recompile in tB and stop there. I'd probably want to add features or whatever.

mansellan

I think many VB6 apps are quite comfortable in 32-bit space. The real driver for 64-bit is Office.

this

if you are not going to update your VB6 app then why bother moving to tB?

mansellan

Personally, I'm hoping that tB breathes new life into VBc apps, lets them evolve again. It would be awesome to see them on GitHub, rather than some 90's style forum...

this

To my mind, the whole reason of going to the trouble of moving to tB is so that you can get new features for your VB6 app.

mansellan

22:02

I hope so

BASIC was always a great intro language. Python seems to have replaced it, but not convinced it's better in all respects...

this

I think Wayne has it right, though - dragging BASIC screaming and kicking into 21st century. :-)

Just curious. What you don't like about python?

mansellan

@this I only used it briefly, but it seems to be a bit... dynamic?

I don't doubt that it's beautiful in its implementation, but as a c# chap I was a bit, meh...

this

well, it's a scripting language so dynamic is kind of the thing.

mansellan

^

I'm sure it's fine for scripting. C# is getting closer to the metal every release though.

And BASIC seems to offer something in between - access to low-level if you want, guide rails if you don't.

this

Yeah, I think it did very very well in getting non-programmers programming.

mansellan

22:10

Pretty sure tB can offer close-to-C performance once it's optimised. It's just compiling to native after all...

this

VB6 did offer that, right?

or was there a caveat?

mansellan

Well, kinda. It had to do (expensive) callbacks into its runitme lib. tB doesn't.

But yeah, it compiled to x86.

this

Interesting.

the VBE - it's right for me

@Vogel612 yup sat down to look at it again and figured out in ~2 minutes I was being a dummy with the html. ty for confirming my sense of code smell

this

23:01

Interesting - apparently they are something similar for VB.NET

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