Not to mention circumventing the usual corporate app deployment BS...
>Inevitably, new hires would be unhappy that they did, in fact, have to write vba code all day and would argue for switching to a better language
JavaScript alone should prove that the "better" language does not win on language design alone (These days it is at least pretty ok)
Re:Will VBA Die? (2019)
by markus_zhang on Friday February 28, 2020 @08:18AM
(#22442542)
Back then there were a few book that talked about the "Internals" of VBA and taught a lot of tricks like manipulating the pointer, etc.
But I do believe that people should turn to better tools. I think at least they could use VB, which is a proper language and has support for version control and other stuffs. It's also very easy to use VB to manipulate Excel, much easier than C#.
What would the role names be for positions like this at an IB? Been interested in this type of work.
The desk-aligned dev spot is a tough one to land. If you’re not hailing from CalTech, MIT, et al, I suggest the highest-probability strategy is an indirect one: get a client-facing job at hedge fund administrator, get great at Excel+vba; over-deliver for the fund’s CFO and/or traders in all their post-trade questions (that’s why Excel+vba expertise is important: it’s easy to deploy to them as just an Excel file); get recruited. The right spot at a fund administrator is much less competitive, and you get an opportunity to impress the same people you would if you were hired directly onto a desk.
Excel+vba is an odd beast because, nowadays, it's rarely seen as a differentiating skill -- it's not taken seriously -- and yet on almost any trading desk there is an infinite series of todo's where Excel+vba is just the right tool for the job.
Re:Will VBA Die? (2019)
by richardcrossley on Friday February 28, 2020 @09:23AM
(#22442936)
Something called "Desk Developer", "Deskdev", "Rapid Application Development" or "RAD".
I was in the Deskdev team in an investment bank for 4 years, great fun and I learned a lot about Excel.
Inevitably, new hires would be unhappy that they did, in fact, have to write vba code all day and would argue for switching to a better language. Our team manager would say, "Vba gives us a superpower no other language does: we can deploy whatever we want, whenever we want, to whomever we want. In any other language, getting 'Hello World' in front of a user is a six month project."