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General Discussion

Jeff Soriano
Jeff Soriano
301 Points
Posted by Jeff Soriano
Jeff Soriano
301 Points

Best Language to learn to start using/manipulating Microsoft Excel at a greater level.

I am in Finance and have been using Excel my entire career. At one point of my career I thought myself Macros, and at another point how to use Microsoft Access. I am at a point of my career where I am getting to a point where these are sufficient enough for the analysis and reports I need to compile. I am at a point where I am using complicated array functions in excel. I still turn to Access and use SQL for my queries. What language would be best for me to learn to take this skills to a new level? I looked in VBA but seen several comments stating that it is really out dated and limited.

Thanks for your help.

3 Answers

Rune Andreas Nielsen
Rune Andreas Nielsen
5,354 Points
Rune Andreas Nielsen
Rune Andreas Nielsen
5,354 Points

Hi, Jeff.

C# should be your language of choice. It is built by Microsoft and comes with great utilities and libraries for creating, manipulating and handling Excel files.

Jeff Soriano
Jeff Soriano
301 Points
Jeff Soriano
Jeff Soriano
301 Points

Thank you! Any thoughts on learning VBA in addition?

Rune Andreas Nielsen
Rune Andreas Nielsen
5,354 Points
Rune Andreas Nielsen
Rune Andreas Nielsen
5,354 Points

From what I know VBA is a dying (if not already dead) language. You should be able to achieve some of the same things in VBA as you would in C#, but you will have a much easier time searching for help in C#. C# is a more valuable skill in the current job market than VBA is.

miguelorange
miguelorange
1,772 Points
miguelorange
miguelorange
1,772 Points

I would reframe the question and not think about learning a language. I'd ask myself questions like, what is the next step in my industry, what is it I'd like to be better at solving, what do I want to play with next, what is going to make me more efficient in my current role, or what is can I learn today that will position me as a thought leader in my organization?

For someone in finance could the next evolution be visual data - learn Tableau or Microsoft Power BI? Another recommendation I'd say is making data analysis more automated, learn data modeling in Excel Lastly, why not go further down the SQL rabbit hole? Namely, get a MTA certification in database, SQL Server, SSRS, SSAS?