On 9/17/07, Sergiy Radyakin <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here is a quote from Mr. Coveney
>
> "If workbooks contain multiple sheets, you would like to access the sheet
> names. Excel doesn't provide this facility, but an add-in called
> ASAP-utilities http://www.asap-utilities.com/ includes one to create an
> index sheet listing all sheets in the workbook. "
>
Pedantic, but it was actually Allan Reese who you are quoting there
(see http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2007-09/msg00508.html).
> And this is exactly where my comment was pointed to (index sheet).
> Otherwise I would have posted a VBA code that appends 200 sheets together.
I would hazard that Micheal was pointing out that there is a solution
which requires the user to learn only one language (i.e. Stata) as
this is the package that analysis is to be performed in, as
demonstrated by the code posted by Joseph Coveney (see
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2007-09/msg00510.html)
Its useful that you have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve
something in Excel with a relatively small number of lines rather than
having to fork out for a third-party application (although I'm at a
loss as to what the code you posted is for as there was no indication,
and it didn't look like Stata code at all), but this would require
that the original poster spent time learning Stata _and_ whatever
language you posted in (which you are obviously already familiar and
proficient in), which is clearly more time consuming than the ODBC
solution that was provided.
No doubt judicious programming of Excel does make reproducibility a
mute point, but the crux is that this rarely happens. Excel is
popular not because of how programmable it is via macros or Visual
Basic, but because its a simple and intuitive point and click
interface. This is itself the very downfall of the software. (Aside
from the "black-box" of tricks that are hidden under the bonnet).
For my own reference I have collated links to various expositions of
problems associated with Excel at
http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/progs/stata/avoid_excel.html
Regards
Neil
--
"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to
them." - Johann von Neumann
Email - [email protected] / [email protected]
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