[menotyou]

Let's face it: IT is the bureaucracy department of modern times which can keep itself 95% busy with self inflicted problems and has 5% service orientation. Processes are opaque for outsiders and typically not helpful.

I really had to lough when I read the following description of the IBM BPM but this sums up a good part of the issue:

  "...while IBM BPM does come with a REST API, this REST API is borderline useless to Technology teams and SMEs

  Some REST calls use javascript encoded as strings Others require html embedded in json embedded in xml
  
  Database tables aren’t queried by name but by GUID.

  There’s no documentation of which GUID relates to which table/process.*"

Quite a lot of things became so outragedly complex no one outside of the IT bothers to handle these, and sometimes not even inside IT. It started with AJAX where suddenly half of the development effort went into designing frontend code and backend services, which honestly does not even touch the end users automation problem. And it went further downhill afterwards. UIs nowadays look modern but are generally as user hostile as the technology stack used to produce these.

In Excel my UI is just "there", I have a nice code generator aka as macro recorder, no IT department questioning my authorization to do something nor does not have time or budget to help me with my business problem.

So VBA is the workaround for users around the IT department. Not perfect, but better than what you would get else.

[j-a-a-p]

VBA is the ultimate agile programming language. The company's IT aka Bureaucracy Department is stuck with Scrum, Squads and what not. And meanwhile in the other departments people are just getting things done with Excel/VBA.

Nothing has changed. In the last century this also happened and it was called islands of automation. In my bubble back then it was considered a good strategy, let departments first play around, and if they are on to something integrate it.

[sanitycheck]

I was talking about this with a friend the other week... I think what IT depts really need to do is let people go crazy with Excel/VBA, but write a script to monitor activity on xls files on the network over the long term.

If there's an xls which has been in regular use for more than 18 months, and it contains macros, then it can be assumed it performs some important role and should be properly documented and checked and could also be rewritten in a "real" language and officially supported. Set up a meeting with whoever made it, and whoever's touched it most. Approach it more like "we're improving your cool thing" than "we're taking away your toys".

[TeMPOraL]

> In my bubble back then it was considered a good strategy, let departments first play around, and if they are on to something integrate it.

Funny how with computerized process, IT departments are effectively central planners. The lowly workers get to only do what the IT secretariat allows. It is this way because national^Wcorporate security!

[j-a-a-p]

I was wondering what would be replacing Excel/VBA after 3 decades as a citizen developer alternative. I could not think of something that even comes close. Any ideas?

[culebron21]

You nailed it, haha! I had exactly the same experience: I was working in 2007 in analytics department, and we had no IT bureacracy, meanwhile the IT department, we had to deal with, would say it would need months of approval for anything substantial (like a simple dashboard or a report), and a year to implement.

[usrbinbash]

I can find bad examples of how things work in basically every department I chose if I look long enough. Are there IT-Managed things that border on insanity? Oh yes. Are these a good excuse to build a shadow IT? No, they are not.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not bothered at all when a couple analysts get together and hack away at their own little tools in VBA. Kudos to them for getting into the spirit of things, and maybe they will understand my day to day better as a result.

What does bother me, is when these analysts suddenly expect my systems architecture to somehow accomodate their private projects in whatever capacity. When I ask for documentation (there isn't any), an architectural overview (nope), or even access to the repo for that abomination (access to a what now?).

Because, why shouldn't their spreadsheet inject data into my processing pipeline? Why shouldn't I write a controller that accomodates whatever tidbits of REST they bothered to watch half a youtube video about? When suddenly I get asked this in a meeting: "What do you mean we need authentication? Why does IT always have to make things so complicated?!?".

So yeah, please, people should absolutely build their VBA, lowcode or whatever tools. I do the same thing, the only difference is, I call them shellscripts, and they live in git repo.

But same as I don't let my CLI tools lose on the production server, I won't let it happen with things that have never even been through one code review.

[7thaccount]

Shadow IT exists for a reason and that's the dysfunctional bureaucracy of IT.

The "Circle of IT" is real. Small companies start out nimble, but then stuff gets crazy and someone decides to standardize it all under one department. This works for awhile, but eventually this organization becomes so useless that it can't serve any functions of the business anymore, so a shadow IT group is built that the business SMEs love as they just "get stuff done". This works for several years, but the executives in IT hate this "rogue" group as it is a constant reminder of their incompetence. Eventually they re-absorb this group and crush them with beauracracy until it all starts again.

[jampekka]

What bothers me as practically 100% shadow IT worker (to the point of buying my own devices and internet connections with my own money) is that IT-departments don't care about the users, usability or productivity almost at all (and security people are especially bad at this). And that a lot of IT people frankly don't understand IT very much.

Without shadowing it, I couldn't get anything done. I have to install new (open source) software or packages more or less every day, but IT would expect me to wait for a week for some bureaucracy for each package. IT fights me getting a computer with a specific GPU although it is required to use a library that I need. IT forces a reboot of my laptop in a middle of a conference presentation. IT blocks me from sending Python source code files over email. IT makes my computer boot to take ten minutes. IT forces me to use OneDrive that often simply doesn't work.

Maybe the abomination is not the private projects? Maybe it's the systems architecture?

[f1shy]

If IT people would only understand they are giving a service for the rest of the company… and not the way around.

[ethbr1]

> or even access to the repo for that abomination (access to a what now?).

Did someone give the analysts access to a repo?

Because I'd hazard ~80% of the companies I've seen don't allow "non-development" users access to the corporate version control system.

[dzolob]

You make very good points, but I think you miss the mark on shutting down intent.

You wouldn’t ignore an excel produced by a competent ceo or cfo (those that know all the shortcuts), so why, instead of helping ppl refactor and release their work properly, you gaslight them as incompetent just because they are not IT?

[gwervc]

> When I ask for documentation (there isn't any), an architectural overview (nope)

As if any of those were present in the average web project lol. I complained about those points in sprint review this morning, and this is a big project made by IT companies.

[sancarn]

To be fair, as an SME, I do have documentation and an architectural overview. In my experience when I have provided these, they have been ignored anyway. I do not have access to git, because why would IT give me something useful? I think many users would use git purely as a VCS if they had access, but nope...

It shouldn't be a spreadsheet. The IT departments should democratise the tools which devs use, so even end-users can use modern tools for the job at hand. Then popping a user-made tool into your processing pipeline would be fair enough, and code can be collaboratively maintained. In the end, just as IT wouldn't want SMEs making changes without their knowledge, SMEs wouldn't want IT changing their core system without their knowledge either.

In my opinion, the more people who know and understand the core systems, the better.

Edit: for what it's worth, I do use github (https://github.com/sancarn/stdVBA), but you won't see nearly any versions of any corporate codebases, why? Git doesn't work great with VBA spreadsheets at all. I'm not going through a 10 step process to upload the updated file to the github repo every time I update a macro in a spreadsheet. This is why on-board git is important.

[jimbokun]

Security is the non-negotiable.

If they want to play with whatever tech tools to get their job done, have at it. They can ask for help when they really need it.

But if they are taking short cuts with the security of the data, that needs to be cracked down on immediately, as they are putting the entire company in jeopardy.

[jimbokun]

One of my first full time software engineering jobs was working on the trading floor of a bank, sitting next to the currency traders.

I was hired by the head of Market Risk Management, whose job was to make sure the bank didn't lose too much money on any given day. He hired me because he did not trust the officially approved IT department to write the code to implement his algorithms. One example: they got something wrong because they did not understand mathematical precedence operations, like multiplication over addition.

So one need was to get all the trades as input to the market risk calculations. This was early 2000s, and I installed Apache with Perl CGI on a PC under the desk, and created a little app for the traders to enter trades and track their positions. The traders started favoring this to the official IT solution because it was easier to use and see their positions.

All of this to say, yes, figuring out how to bypass IT is an important function in a lot of corporate environments.

And back to Excel: the traders used it for all of their calculations and simulations. We tried to work with them by giving them tools that plugged into Excel so they could leverage it along with what they were already doing.

[steve1977]

Was also working in trading floor support (as IT) in the early 2000s. We actually even had proper Excel add-ins (programmed in C++) that provided special functions and also connected to backend systems as far as I remember.

[sancarn]

> We tried to work with them by giving them tools that plugged into Excel

This is probably one of the best ideas out there. If companies built a bunch of Excel Addins to leverage business systems, that would be revolutionary for many businesses.

[dmurray]

There's a sentence in the article which says that this is an explicit policy decision of the company.

> It is supposedly “Against the technology strategic vision of the company” to allow “end-users” access to high level programming languages.

[TeMPOraL]

At this point it's not even explicit - it's an implicit decision of most companies, and even OSS projects, because it became part of the "common wisdom" of computing, part of the zeitgeist.

This is where the idea of "a computer as a bicycle for the mind" died.

[jampekka]

A physical world analogue wouldn't be far from a renovation company declaring "flathead screwdrivers are against technology strategic vision of the company" and their use is therefore strictly banned. Construction workers would of course use letter openers and butter knives to turn the flathead screws they inevitably encounter in their work, and that would be just fine.

[layer8]

It’s weird to me though that VBA apparently doesn’t count as “high level”.

[kstenerud]

And rightly so.

Imagine for a moment that someone in accounting built a system in lisp to automate part of his job. As time goes on, he takes on more responsibility, which he writes more lisp for.

One day, he gets hit by a bus.

The lisp program he wrote is now an integral part of the running of the accounting department simply by accumulation and momentum, with tons of business logic baked in. Where do you look to find a replacement?

With VBA, there's a much higher chance of an accountant being familiar with the language, and a much smaller surface area for what they can do.

[execveat]

At this point you should just leave this dumpster fire of an organization and find a more reasonable place to work. I can't relate to the people who keep inventing atrocious workarounds ignoring the problem that they work in a hostile work environment.

I work in security and can't relate to banning Python & replacing it with Microsoft crap either.

[tinus_hn]

So the answer is:

Because it is the only programming language Corporate can’t choose not to install.

The wonders of ‘Enterprise’, it amazes me when people bring it up as if it’s any kind of advantage or excuse.

[MichaelZuo]

Huh? The parent clearly points out that it's much less effort and hassle to get an 80% solution.

Who wouldn't want to spend a tiny fraction of the effort to get 80% of the outcome?

[TimTheTinker]

Someone needs to build a wasm interpreter in VBA.

Then we can write programs in Go/Rust/etc and run them in office or wherever.

VBA is to corporate environments what JavaScript is to the web.

[sancarn]

Honestly, this is something I've been wanting to do for a while... Last I looked though, I couldn't find many good resources on how WASI (or the byte code) worked... And VBA being single threaded might make things difficult too...

I have already built my own code interpreter in VBA to make Lambda syntax possible: https://github.com/sancarn/stdVBA/blob/master/src/stdLambda.... so I know it's definitely possible, just haven't figured out WASM yet...

[4star3star]

VBA can call executables, but I can see some places locking things down such that that would not fly.