What's your opinions on Macros? 1

[Crowley16]

Recently I've come across this database, which frankly is quite critical, and used constantly, but have some rather serious design flaws, and one of them was there is not one single line of vba in the entire database.

Everything was done with macros, hundreds of them, all over the place...

I've never used a macro myself, so can someone point out advantages of using macros? Apart from not having to code it yourself...

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Procrastinate Now!

 

[PHV]

Old access had AccessBasic, not VBA.

 

[RandyMyers]

I still believe that macros are a very good thing. They are quick and make it much easier to try different logics is resolving an issue.

With this in mind, a major application I have been developing for the IT department (the hardest users in the world to make happy I might add) had about 300-400 macros in it. I finally decided to convert all to VBA. Yes it took about a week, but it is done and it has definitely given me a since of accomplishment. I will continue to use macros as a way of working through logical solutions and trying things to get them to work as I would like, however I will convert these to VBA for the final distribution of an upgrade to the system.

I have noticed a couple of things. After converting the application it is considerably larger (I attribute it to all the error checking code) but does seem to run a little faster. And a big thing is that with all these macros I could not create a MDE. After rebuilding and replacing all macros I can now create an MDE file for distribution. The MDE is noticeably faster.

Bottom line is, there is use for macros and a developer should not be shunned for using macros. Converting to VBA has advantages. I stick to my original opinion that a mix of the two, each for their particular strengths is the way to go. A small application I will use macros extensively and a high level production system I will convert to VBA for the final product.