When I decided to use Perl, I was looking for a language that had several characteristics. It had to be free as in beer, usable on Losedows and Linux and had to talk to Excel. I tried Perl, Python and Java. The only one I with which I could make any progress was Perl.

Now, that's not saying much. Have a look at some of the nodes where I have asked for help some six years after starting and you will see just how poor my Perl still is. But I have found the Perl interface to Excel easier to learn than the Excel interface to Excel. However, I didn't touch Perl until I considered myself an Excel pro. I'm a lot better at Excel now.

So I started learning how to control Excel from $language from a position of knowing Excel. This, I think, is the difference between me on the one hand and you and your friend on the other. Excel is NOT easy. It's buggy. The macro recorder has a huge number of faults. It's almost the antithesis of Perl's DWIM. You seem to be approaching $language/Excel as though knowing $language will be enough. Maybe it will, but I seriously doubt it. Even for VBA, I found Lomax's "VB & VBA in a nutshell" frankly confusing until I had mastered the differences between Excel and the other spreadsheets I knew well (now I find it indispensible). I can only do very basic things in Word, even from VBA, and haven't even tried automating Outleak or PawPrint, but then I've never needed or wanted to.

If Python works for you, that's wonderful. I am always pleased to hear of successful computer projects. But if what other posters have said is anything like true, you won't go very far before you need to learn Excel properly. And once you have, I suggest you revisit Perl.

Regards,

John Davies