About VBA, Excel, GIS software

Recently, I was too busy to do some things with my mind. The progress of an Excel book was very slow. The reason was that I could not concentrate on doing things, except for the outside world.

Today, a Web user sent a mail to discuss the VBA issue. I wonder if the platform after office 12 or later will continue to support VBA. I replied that it should continue or there is a better alternative. But in fact, I am also playing a drum in my heart, and I am also concerned about these issues.

I have used many data processing tools, such as MATLAB and IDL. I feel that excel is a very useful tool among these tools. At least for personal research work, I cannot find a tool that is better than Excel + VBA, probably for the following reasons:

1. Excel workbooks have excellent features and functions, making them an excellent data container and shell;

2. The excellent interaction between VBA and Excel makes expansion very convenient. Here, it should be noted that this convenience is probably not because of VBA, but the combination of Excel Data Model and VBA. The same is VBA, but the VBA of ArcGIS is very bad;

3. excel workbooks and functions can be used to derive formulas and data-driven applications. Excel expansion macros can be used to become a professional data processing suite, instead of having to worry about data storage, display, and chart visualization. A Workbook itself is a customizable interface ;..., therefore, there are many tasks that can be completed based on Excel;

4. the lightweight VBA is a relief for general users and developers.

Of course, VBA itself may have some problems. The IDE of VBA is also a matter of personal dissatisfaction, but in short, it seems that there is still no substitute for Excel + VBA.

As mentioned above, my personal confusion is not how to deal with VBA or its replacement in later versions of office, but how to find the entire replacement of office. The volume of the new wps2005 is what everyone will do, and what about office? But the more you do, the more you can't do without office. Without outlook, you don't know how to handle emails, how to handle contacts, and how to arrange schedules (the current schedules are all in outlook); without OneNote, note how to remember, now all the notes, diaries, and blogs are completed in OneNote first, including a lotArticleSomeone recommends [Evernote], but does not support Chinese. On the contrary, Word and Excel are the least important.

If there are so many topics, I want to say that excel + VBA is good, and I want to have better tools. From the use of DOS to the present, except for software changes, the use of computers does not seem to have changed much. They are all files and folders, therefore, there is no online email or Blog reading tool. But it is not the same method.

Web 2.0? I don't know. The last few days, Lin talked about developing a WebGIS that is not much different from the desktop GIS. At least there is no technical problem. From the perspective of application, this distributed architecture is more in line with the spirit of GIS.