Had I been born a few years later or had I been exposed to computers earlier in my life, I probably would have pursued an education in a field more directly related to programming. However, only in the past few years has coding and data analysis come into my life, almost by accident. [If you read this paragraph knowing that my background is in mathematics, you would think that what I just said makes no sense at all.]

At some point, circumstances converged to present me with challenges for which I was asked to develop solutions. The learning process born from the need to solve those problems was not always particularly structured. Many different knowledge sources had to come together (and continue to do so) to form my solid understanding of what a well-written coding project is.

The learning journey was quite a solitary process in which I was left alone with my analytical and demanding mind. So I built my understanding of what a well-structured code should be while delightfully involved with developing solutions by playing with logic and absorbing every piece of knowledge coming my way. Most of the pieces came from a wide variety of IT professionals who generously publish valuable content online, both free and paid. To all of them, I extend my eternal and daily-renewed gratitude.

I was also lucky to have people who trusted me with their business system challenges and gave me the opportunity to explore, experiment, test, validate, and use my creativity, challenge after challenge.

I had many self-talks in which I debated about the best way to build my VBA code and I did not have many chances to compare my work to the work of those who were formally trained as programmers.

When I recently came across the YouTube playlist “Better VBA” recorded by Philipp Stiefel, an experienced programmer, my reaction to his teaching included thoughts like:

  • Oh, yeah! It took me a while to get there, but thank you for validating my conclusion!
  • I wish I had known that when I first started! It would have saved me so much time.
  • That makes sense! How come I did not think about that before?
  • That’s interesting. That subject has crossed my mind before and it is great to see that it is, in fact, an important matter for experienced and academic programmers as well.
  • I definitely need to push that item up on my forever-growing, to-learn list.
  • Really?? I didn’t know that! That’s fantastic! Thanks a lot!

In the series of 14 videos, Philipp presents his point of view about “writing beautiful, readable, maintainable, and robust VBA Code.” The series includes topics such as:

  • Must-know VBA editor configuration settings;
  • How to make your code easily readable with proper indentation and adequate variable names;
  • How to properly declare variables;
  • How to write code that is easy to reuse and to maintain;
  • Whether or not to use class modules;
  • The importance of testing your code.

He also invites other talented programmers to discuss their ideas about some of these topics.

I invite all those interested in VBA to watch this video series.

I definitely will come back to it again. Too much good stuff to absorb all at once. Thank you, Philipp!