I am a complete novice as far as VBA or any other programming is concerned. However, I have worked in Excel a lot. I was wondering if John Walkenbach's "Excel 2000 (XP) Power Programming with VBA" would be a good book to learn VBA with (if not can anyone recommend some others). I am concerned that it will assume quite a bit of VBA knowledge already. What do you think? I bought the Advanced Modelling (Satunton, Jackson) book but that was too advanced since I had little in the way of finance knowledge and it seemed to assume some knowledge of VBA. The reason I ask is that I am starting a job in a few weeks in IRP trading and I think it would be useful to know some VBA. Thanks.

ICEMAN,learning VBA is easy-peasy as Jamie Oliver would say.I was fairly satisified with the book you mentioned:John WalkenbachExcel 2002 Power Programming with VBAJohn Wiley & SonsI think you can use it as a beginner, do not be scared by"Power" in the title - it's just there to sell the book.There is one by OReilly which I love as a publisherfor Perl and Unix-related stuff, but the Excel-bookis somewhat below normal OReilly standard:Steven RomanWriting Excel Macros with VBAOReillyDefinitely beware of this one which was a disappointment(just browsed through it in the shop, decided not to buy it):Microsoft Excel 2003 Programming Inside OutMS PressBest wishes,Hans-Marc Erkingerwww.gloriosia.com - home of Trading with Matlab

Thanks a lot. I've heard a bit about that Walkenbach book, but just wanted to see what Wilmott people thought. Does anyone else have any advice?

I also found Walkenbach - Power prgramming with VBA to be excellent.

He claims 95% of excel users only use 5% of the functionality, the rest who get as far as using VBA are termed "power users" hence the books name.This is not an advanced book and imho is the best introductory book for generalist Excel VBA.

If you've used 95% of VBA what does that make you ?

Head Towel Boy at the Gates mansion?

i feel a mixed sense of respect and grave pity for anyone who's used 95% of VBA!

Well if you are working with VBA and Excel, I would recommend that you spend some time acquiring knowledge of Excels built in functions, a good foundation of VBA and a little of Access. If you know Excel well - start picking up some Access or even SQL. They are all complementary. Often I find people writing power VBA codes, when I can click a few buttons in Excel or Access and get what I want. Unless you're developing systems and software - you don;t actually have to write code for everything you are trying to do.Try Wiley's 'excel programming'by Jinjer Simon. It is not a power-book. Heck it's more like a how-to beginniners book. Provides an intuitive feel - which is probably more important than knowing all the syntax and not being able to visualise when to use what.But eventhough i know VBA reasonably well, I still refer to it. Reason : its visual and I don;t have to spend ages flipping up and down a thick book looking for a particular reference. I'm lazy

thanks a lot!

Walkenbach's book is quite good, if wordy. (That's probably not a disadvantage for an absolute beginner, though.)Once you have a little more experience, get a copy of "VB & VBA in a Nutshell", by Paul Lomax (one of O'Reilly's outstanding 'Nutshell' series of programming handbooks). VBA has a lot of little quirks, and the on-line help is cumbersome for looking up syntax and function usage - it is a lot quicker to just pull the Nutshell book off your shelf and flip through the alphabetical reference section. The general chapters in the front are very good also - concise and accurate.Always remember to use the Excel macro recorder. The code it produces usually won't be very elegant, but it is great for identifying which properties and methods to use - Excel's object model is pretty enormous.