Winter Scripting Games: Profiles in Perfection
Tracy Roberts
As part of the 2007 Winter Scripting Games the Script Center is profiling competitors who recorded a perfect score in the 2007 Scripting Games. Here, in his own words, is a little something about Tracy Roberts, who received a perfect score in the VBScript Beginners Division.
Check out more Profiles in Perfection from the 2007 Scripting Games.
Tracy Roberts
I'm the IT Manager for the Australian branch of an international publishing house, and wear the Systems Administrator hat as well.
Since my first programming experience was with FORTRAN IV on punch cards in the late 1970s, the discovery of terminals connected to a PDP 11/24 was a revelation. I learned BASIC from books like David Ahl's BASIC Computer Games, and I never lost the BASIC bug. After moving into IT as tech support around 20 years ago I've reached for BASIC in its many varieties when something needs doing.
Nearly all my scripting these days is writing custom reports from different sources, usually outputting to Excel. LogParser is a great tool and my motto these days would probably be:
"When your only tool is a disconnected recordset all problems are databases"
Scripting Tips
| • | Look before coding: If you want to do it then it has probably been done before by someone else. Now see if you can improve it. |
| • | If you're scripting Office applications use the Visual Basic editor as a reference tool. Converting to VBScript usually isn't too hard. |
| • | Don't be afraid of scripting COM objects. There are a lot out there that will work with VBScript. Experiment! |
