Saturday 28 September 2013

Technical Function Library

This is a library of functions for calculations to various Australian structural standards including:


  1. AS1170.2 Wind loading 
  2. AS4100 Steel structures code 
  3. AS4600 Cold-formed steel structures code 
  4. AS1720 Timber structures code 

It also contains a lot of experimental litter. It is an absolute necessity for using all my other spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are useful, but I find vba code more reliable and easier to read when it come to conditional tests, branching, and looping. Spreadsheets are not very reliable when it comes to tabulated calculations nor efficient. In a database management system an equation is defined once for a group of records and then progressively executed on each record. In a spreadsheet the equations have to be defined for each and every record (row) of the spreadsheet and that leads to potential error. It is also easier to expend an array in vba than it is to add extra rows to tables and mesh several tables together. Even if using tables of calculations in a spreadsheet it is easier to call vba functions to achieve greater consistency for each cell calculated, and too hide lots of complex conditional tests behind the scenes. Each different audience and purpose for calculations requires a different presentation, having vba functions provides greater flexibility compared to merely replicating hand written calcs in a worksheet.


Taken from the ExcelCalcs.com website.