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Hi CMA
Contrary to my frugal reputation, I bought all three books. Yep ... paid
hard cash for them. They are getting pretty marked up with notes, comments,
and programming ideas.
"Excel 2000 VBA Programmers Reference" at
http://www.wrox.com/Store/Details.asp?Code=2548
Walkenbach's "Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA"
at www.idgbooks.com
and
"SAMS Teach Yourself Microsoft Excel 2000 Programming in 21 Days" by Matthew
Harris at www.samspublishing.com
The reference book is a fast and easy way to find out the scope / extent of
the objects and methods of a "part" of a Excel that you want to program.
Walkenbach's book is much more orientated to using Excel features to their
maximum extent. Lots of tips and tricks here. Easy to read and understand.
It is fast paced and will definitely not put you to sleep.
The SAMS 21 day course is great for the non-programmer like myself. For
example simple VBA / programming terminology will drive you nuts on a
regular basis. Someone will talk about "calling" a procedure ... SAMS was
the only book to tell me that to "call a procedure" is the same as to "run a
procedure". Pretty elementary for the programmers but a pain in the butt for
me. So, this book is a real "hand-holder" for me through the wonderland of
programming.
The free VBA "book"/materials at
http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/Opg/toc/pgtoc.htm
are probably too complicated for the beginner.
=============
Why spend the money and time learning VBA?
Data providers want to charge me $35 to 37 CDN per month for eod data ...
that's $420+ CDN per year. The free downloads saves a lot of cash to buy
books .... even Excel itself.
None of the technical software programs are really suitable for statistics,
historical analysis, and developing trade indicators ... plus the whole area
of trade analysis and money management. The technical analysis focus of the
popular programs is necessary but one-sided. You end up just one of
thousands in the TA herd trading the noise. No market or structural
inefficiencies to be uncovered here.
None of the software programs allow you to develop your own user forms,
toolbars, controls, inputs, etc.
You can set up Excel so that it doesn't even look like Excel or a spread
sheet.
Once the initial effort is made, the step from VBA to VB is not that great
and then you have much greater depth of control over the user interface. Not
as much as C or C+ but more than enough for the serious trader/programmer.
So the question always is ... what is Metastock going to look like in five
years? Meanwhile Excel and the Redmond Rangers keep rolling along ...
getting more and more powerful and user friendly ... as their huge installed
user base continues to grow. The number of VBA orientated web sites is
staggering.
Happy trails
Walter
----- Original Message -----
From: CMA <cma6@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Metastock Digest <metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Walter Lake <wlake@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 1999 1:31 AM
Subject: Learng Excel VBA and Autoit
> Walter Lake mentioned books which would teach how to
> use VBA with Excel 97 and MetaStock. Which book would
> be best for someone with no VBA or any other
> programming experience?
>
> Also Ton Maas mentioned AutoIt, but there seemed to
> be great confusion as to what was the URL if there is
> any.
> Thanks, CMA
>
> _________________________________________________________
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