The personal learning experience begins with the first step.

Hello everyone on the Internet and thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

This is my very first blog to the world.

I would like to share a journal with you using this format. So that, everyone may benefit from my learning and application of my new programming skills using Visual Basic for Application (VBA). In order to do this, I will be using Microsoft Excel 2010 and will indicate which version where it matters.

Before I begin, let me tell you how I became interested into VBA. I was a regular reader of the website called Code Project (2012), "CodeProject - For those who code" [accessed 6 April 2012]. I have opted for reading regular reviews daily by email of what is "out there". Something caught my eye about this article by Louis Lazaris (2012), "Publish What You Learn" [accessed 6 April 2012]; The idea I got from this article is to share your experiences.

I do know Microsoft Excel, and the programming language is Visual Basic for Applications.
Microsoft produced an office suite (Word the word processor, Excel the spreadsheet, PowerPoint the presentation, Access the database, Outlook the electronic client to share emails) to help hundreds if not thousands of people to communicate and share information around the globe.

There are many reasons why I enjoy using Excel; Excel is fantastic for recording items such as a shopping list, tallying up figures along with the associated costs plus Excel also has the capability to display how well the items are working for you personally or for a business by creating graphs and tables.

Excel has provided a short hand notion of allowing us to reduce complex calculations by use of formulas. Formulas derived from the field of mathematics can be used to save time and simplify many steps of a complex calculation where many different expressions need to be included.

This leads to flexibility when changing the numbers. This benefits the user so that they can see different outcomes when a value is changed and then recalculated again.

Excel also has a macro which is similar to a recording button on a digital television. Excel translates these clicks from the computer and translates these actions into simplified tasks that Excel can redo with ease, for an example a macro can be used when creating graphs regularly.

VBA is the programming engine that understands the tasks received from the macro and can reproduce it in a blink of an eye.

I would like to finish by ending with a list in point form of what I would like to achieve, and I expect will continue to grow along the journey.

1. Create a fictional or make-believe company so I that I have a basis of a business model (my terminology of what the business does that generates income and expenses) so I could make a list of customers, suppliers, services this business can benefit.

2. Make a fictional situation or risks that occur which a VBA solution will demonstrate.

3. Put into practice several suggested VBA websites or ideas/concepts to create solutions.

4. Once the business is up and running, shift this blog focus into generating VBA Excel games.

Til then,
Peter