Code Snippets POLL

[geecee]

Hi all.

Do you often spend more time on the internet searching for a “how to” than you care to when using Excel or VBA? Gets frustrating. Doesn’t it. Then, if you do find something and don’t make a note of where you found it or where you might have used it, you have to go through it all again should the occasion arise.

I have put forward a suggestion re the posting of “Code Snippets” https://eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=30638 which I do believe would be worthwhile in Eileen’s Lounge and I would like your considered opinion “YES” or “NO” to the question “Do you believe the posting of Code Snippets would be worthwhile?”

Thank you.

[Rudi]

TX George,

Lets see what resolves from this.....

[PJ_in_FL]

GOOGLE finds snippets easily enough without adding them to The Lounge. Hans and Rudi and many other contributors to The Lounge have made a reputation for providing SOLUTIONS, and I feel adding an unending amount of snippets would be detrimental to that benefit of The Lounge.

Open to free discourse and other opinions on the matter, as always!

[Doc.AElstein]

My personal opinion of such a resource at Eileen’s lounge is a bit split, 50 / 50 , so I didn’t vote, intentionally, as I guessed that was like a neutral vote, well sort of effectively … . :-)
_ On the one hand, I like spending time here and seeing a good stocked resource would be useful for personal reference and possibly for me and others answering questions to refer to save repeating ourselves would be nice. ( I try to reference similar Threads where possible when answering. )
_ On the other hand, the internet is so flooded with resources of anything and everything, such that you often have too much to wade through when you look for something. So I am less favourable about adding to it all. I might have been more keen about 10 years ago.
_._____________
So sorry not to contribute to the vote, ( I cant vote twice, Yes and No ) , maybe instead other comments on the subject…..
I notice that such a resource is one of those things that people often seem to start with a lot of enthusiasm , but then all day pressures make it difficult to keep up the enthusiasm:
An awful lot of Blog sites started with great enthusiasm have since more of less been abandoned by their owners..
The same fate with a few new forums in more recent years. They rarely last.

An important issue would be how the information could be searched. The title is important, but possibly not a major problem to improve by editing the Title if the original does not seem to work too well on getting caught on searches.
But I believe there is more to it than that. Apparently there is some very good method used to enhance the chances of getting caught in a search. Apparently a lot of forums had to remove it sometime ago as it caused problems. I don’t understand anymore about it than that , ( it may have been called VBSEO or SEO or similar ) . The end result was that as a resource a lot of forums might be disadvantaged over other information resource sources now. I don’t know what / if / how that is relevant to the particular software used by Eileen’s Lounge.

It needs a lot of work to make it a useful source in terms of keeping it well organised. You have to rely on someone having a lot of time and personal interest to do that voluntarily. It can turn into a full time voluntary job if the thing gets successful. A few Blog owners have commented to me that success in these sort things is the very thing that ends up killing it off, as they could not keep up with it as it grew. I guess in a commercial environment you would just take more people on. Any sort of voluntarily work can be its own worst enemy when it grows in popularity. At college we had a OAP Day Centre. It got so popular we could not keep up, and had to trash it. Very sad :(

So I would support it and be happy to contribute if it was here. But I am inclined not to vote for it.-as I said, I purposely didn’t vote as I am split 50 50 on whether I think it is a good idea at Eileen’s Lounge to start one or not
My guess is that the key to success is shifting over to an efficient search processes to find what is there already somewhere, as almost everything is there. Often I have found the most useful stuff by chance, or from someone at a forum.
It is there, but I can’t find it. I expect I will have to rely on chance to find the dead mouse in my cellar. It is getting very unpleasantly smelly just now :( I think the old saying “Google is your friend” is becoming not so valid anymore..
Some of the best helpers in a Forum might become those that know where to look or have the instinct based on experience of what search terms to use on what search engines. I have sometimes spent days searching for something the internet for something that was there, but I couldn’t find it as I hit so much other stuff when searching…

_._________________

Amongst other things, I am currently trying to get a lot of my more useful codes organised, If such a resource here existed, then, with permission , I would prefer to contribute slightly differently: I would give a short worded explanation of what the code does in terms of its practical use. Then I would include a link to a “safe” code sharing site, where I would have the code and a full code description
( I don’t like just giving a code. Just a personal preference. I don’t like the code window at Eileen’s Lounge. It just doesn’t suit my preferred style, that’s all).

Alan

P.s. 1 . By the way, that site:eileenslounge.com stuff, seems to make a big difference. If you had a Tips/ Tutorials/ Code Snippet sub forum then that probably should be mentioned in a sticky in that sub forum. I have read in some other forums that the site:_____ type search in something like google is often better than any built in forum search thing…. I have experienced that myself as well.

P.s. 2 If anyone has a code snippet to find the dead mouse in my cellar, then I would be very grateful. The smell is getting so bad, it is giving me a headache now. :( I keep being told that VBA can do almost anything …: )

Edit P.s. 3 … maybe in the next week or so I might find my 50 / 50 refining itself to a 45 / 55 in one direction or the other, … so then if that happens I will vote appropriately, but I expect it will remain a close thing by me..

[Doc.AElstein]

GOOGLE finds snippets easily enough without adding them to The Lounge.

My experienced is a bit different. Often the best code snippets are on the internet, but half the time I have not been able to find them, despite a lot of time searching. In many cases someone with more experience has been able to point me in the right direction.
( One very useful tip someone gave me was to search for VB stuff sometimes when looking for VBA codes. Sometimes that can reveal a lot of very useful stuff for VBA ( I know that VBA and VB are related. ( I have seen a lots of attempts to explain all the different versions of VB and how they are related. But the explanations are always a bit different. No one is quite sure anymore or has a different idea.. The bottom line is that a lot of coding to do somehow with VB will work with or without a bit of modification in VBA
....... ... exit before the Pros get upset with my Naivety again ) )

[geecee]

I think maybe the poll should now be considered closed. With 20% Yes and 80% No the trend is not likely to reverse. My thanks to those who cast a vote.

[viking33]

I think maybe the poll should now be considered closed. With 20% Yes and 80% No the trend is not likely to reverse. My thanks to those who cast a vote.

I did cast a vote here but regardless to the outcome, you have to consider the low sampling of only 10 votes is far too low to consider it very valid.

[Doc.AElstein]

Hello George,
I agree with Bob, and add to that… I think many Loungers only very occasionally pop by this sub forum so it may be a while before they notice it. I expect for many people it is one of those questions that might not immediately be active in their mind, but they would probably take the few seconds to past a vote when they stumble past the Thread co incidentally at some time in the future.
I will vote when I refine my undecided 50/50 to something a bit more precise. I may forget the thread then stumble on it again and vote later if it is still open. I mentioned the thread in passing to someone when code snippets came into our conversation co incidentally. They then immediately voted. I expect the that might happen again..

In the meantime you might find that one particular code snippet has been extremely useful to you and if you are then really keen to share that you could mention that code snippet here and in doing so bring the Thread back into view occasionally?
I expect that would be OK with the Admins as long as it was not done too often. If you did not want to clutter the Thread, an alternative approach could be to just post a short concise accurate worded description of what the coding does then supply a link to a safe site. I believe a lot of professionals share coding via a link to their uploaded code at this free place: https://pastebin.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I only started using it myself after a few professionals recommended it to me. You could even use it yourself as a way to store and back up your most important codes. Then if a code snippet thread takes off you have that extra option to share already at hand.
( I later subscribed to the professional version at paste bin, something I very rarely do, being miles away from anything like a professional. . It then allowed organising in Folders , Editing etc which I found very useful. ( But a tip – wait a while if you do consider the professional option – they often intermittently have an offer of life subscription at a greatly reduced price, cheaper than their normal annual subscription rate, I probably would not have subscribed if I had not noticed that offer once when it came up ) )


I vote to just leave it open. Just my opinion ( Maybe need a poll on if to close the poll – only kidding :-) )

Alan

P.S. George, you don’t seem to have PMs enabled.. can we “make contact?” - Nothing important

[HansV]

This thread (with the poll) is in the Lounge Matters forum; it shouldn't be used to post code snippets.

[geecee]

Hi all.

Do you often spend more time on the internet searching for a “how to” than you care to when using Excel or VBA? Gets frustrating. Doesn’t it. Then, if you do find something and don’t make a note of where you found it or where you might have used it, you have to go through it all again should the occasion arise.

I have put forward a suggestion re the posting of “Code Snippets” ........ and I would like your considered opinion “YES” or “NO” to the question “Do you believe the posting of Code Snippets would be worthwhile?”

Thank you.

.......... Hans and Rudi and many other contributors to The Lounge have made a reputation for providing SOLUTIONS .........

I couldn't agree more and take nothing away from that fact. I have received and appreciated help on many occasions, but if I want to find that help now, I have to search all my posts.

I think maybe the poll should now be considered closed. With 20% Yes and 80% No the trend is not likely to reverse. My thanks to those who cast a vote.

I did cast a vote here but regardless to the outcome, you have to consider the low sampling of only 10 votes is far too low to consider it very valid.

That's so, but I think it would have to be something dramatic for the trend to reverse. I don't know how long a poll is allowed to run for and who considers it closed.

[HansV]

The poll remains open, but I think it is unlikely that there will be many more votes. So for the moment at least, we won't create a special 'code snippets' thread.

[geecee]

The poll remains open, but I think it is unlikely that there will be many more votes. So for the moment at least, we won't create a special 'code snippets' thread.

Thanks Hans for your reply.

[ChrisGreaves]

Do you often spend more time on the internet searching for a “how to” than you care to when using Excel or VBA?

Hello geecee.
Long before the internet was googleable, I found myself spending more time on my own computer searching for a “how to” than I cared to when using Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, or any other VBA-supported application?

I decided that VBA code was just strings of characters delimited by carriage-returns, so a procedure was a string, so a module was a string, so a project was a string so a folder was a string of strings and a computer was a very large string.
I now have a program that scours my hard drive collecting all snippets of VBA code (including TXT files and Lounge Digests) and presents them in a searchable format.
PM me if you'd like to give it a try.

Cheers
ceegee

[Doc.AElstein]

..... was just strings of characters delimited by carriage-returns, so a procedure was a string, so a module was a string, so a project was a string so a folder was a string of strings and a computer was a very large string.....

That is very interesting actually.. I came to that conclusion myself recently.
If in addition to the carriage-returns you get a bit of experience with the combinations of carriage-returns and Tabs then you have a lot of easy alternative ways to fiddle around with Excel ranges through how they are held as a string in the clipboard. I decide to spend some time looking at those alternative possibilities for searching, sorting manipulating spreadsheet ranges….

[viking33]

I can't believe only 10 people decided to vote a simple yes or no to the poll.
Seems similar to a political election, an opinion poll aor any local poll, as a matter of fact. Just can't be bothered to tick a box and hit enter.

[HansV]

Most Loungers never look at Lounge Matters, probably.

[viking33]

Most Loungers never look at Lounge Matters, probably.

OH.

[HansV]

As with most discussion boards, the majority of members go straight to the relevant (or sometimes not so relevant ) forum, post a question, and wait for replies.

[viking33]

As with most discussion boards, the majority of members go straight to the relevant (or sometimes not so relevant ) forum, post a question, and wait for replies.

How boring.

[HansV]

Still, most of our members will acknowledge a reply and post a reaction. I'm also active on various Microsoft forums. There, many users post a question and never come back, even though the moderators ask them whether the replies they received were helpful...