[Year 12 IT Apps] Some things do sink in after all

[Russell Edwards]

I had a bit of a chuckle today.

I was on a web forum, completely non-IT-related, but someone asked a  
question about how to do something in Excel. It was a a great job for  
a VLOOKUP and a drop-down box. I answered in keep-it-simple-stupid  
mode and just gave the VLOOKUP formula, without the added complication  
of explaining how to do a named lookup table or drop down lists.  
Someone else replied and said "too complicated, just use this formula"  
and gave a bit ugly nested IF statement!

Then, someone else chimed in and said, No, you should use the VLOOKUP,  
put the lookup table in a different sheet, name it along with all  
other constants, and use a combo box. He then pointed readers to the  
Mark Kelly's VCE IT web site and said  "written by my old IT  
teacher ;-)".

There you go Mark, pat yourself on the back: at least one of your  
students retained something ~7 years later (he's 25, or claims to be)!

Russell Edwards
Whittlesea Secondary College