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Coding in SQL, Python, VBA, JQuery and OfficeScript using AI tools Part six of an eight-part series of blogs
One of the immediate and obvious ways to use AI tools is to boost your productivity as a programmer. This blog shows how you can use ChatGPT 4 and Google's Bard to write programs in SQL, Python, VBA, JQuery and Office Script (probably the 5 languages Wise Owl use most). Comparing the coding skills of two different AI tools SQL programming using AI tools Getting help with Python code using AI tools VBA programming using AI tools Getting AI help with C# programming Writing programs in Office Scripts using AI (this blog) Writing JQuery or JavaScript code using AI tools Conclusion: which AI tools (if any) should you use for which languages?

Coding in SQL, Python, VBA, JQuery and OfficeScript using AI tools

Part six of an eight-part series of blogs

One of the immediate and obvious ways to use AI tools is to boost your productivity as a programmer. This blog shows how you can use ChatGPT 4 and Google's Bard to write programs in SQL, Python, VBA, JQuery and Office Script (probably the 5 languages Wise Owl use most).

Comparing the coding skills of two different AI tools
SQL programming using AI tools
Getting help with Python code using AI tools
VBA programming using AI tools
Getting AI help with C# programming
Writing programs in Office Scripts using AI (this blog)
Writing JQuery or JavaScript code using AI tools
Conclusion: which AI tools (if any) should you use for which languages?

Posted by Andy Brown on 07 June 2023

In this blog

Office Script using ChatGPT (time taken: 54 seconds)
Bard writing Office Scripts (time taken: 8 seconds)

Writing Office Scripts using AI tools

Nearing the end of our marathon AI coding session, the Office Script question I thought we'd ask is:

Write an OfficeScript program to loop over all of the worksheets in a given workbook, counting the number of active cells in each and presenting this information in a table in a separate workbook

This is a nice simple request, but I'm expecting that the answers won't be as good as for other languages due to the absence of training material out there. Let's find out!

Office Script using ChatGPT (time taken: 54 seconds)

I was expecting ChatGPT to struggle with Office Scripts, but (as so often) was flabbergasted at how good its reply was. It began with a little history lesson:

The first paragraph of this is no longer true - Office Scripts also work in the desktop version of Excel - but the disclaimer does say that the information might be out of date.

Here's the script created:

I don't claim to know Office Scripts as well as my colleague Andy Gould, but this answer looks highly plausible to me (and the explanation of how it works at the end is excellent).

Bard writing Office Scripts (time taken: 8 seconds)

I thought Bard might struggle with this (it is after all a Google tool, and must have some bias towards Google Scripts?), but I didn't think it would make up syntax!

I am no Office Scripts expert, but I'm pretty sure that the getActiveCellCount function only exists in the imagination of Bard.

Once more Bard has taken much less time to arrive at what is superficially a perfectly plausible answer, but with coding (almost more than in any other field of human endeavour) the devil is in the detail!

Parts of this blog
Comparing the coding skills of two different AI tools SQL programming using AI tools Getting help with Python code using AI tools VBA programming using AI tools Getting AI help with C# programming Writing programs in Office Scripts using AI (this blog) Writing JQuery or JavaScript code using AI tools Conclusion: which AI tools (if any) should you use for which languages?