Comments on: VBA Rant #1 http://www.codeforexcelandoutlook.com/blog/2008/05/vba-rant-1/ Automation and VBA code for Microsoft® Excel and Outlook Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:47:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Julian Turner http://www.codeforexcelandoutlook.com/blog/2008/05/vba-rant-1/#comment-1373 Julian Turner Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:57:37 +0000 http://jimmypena.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/vba-rant-1/#comment-1373 I have compared VBA with "VB.NET and PIAs". VBA - Development is extremely rapid - Performance is great - I am productive - Cost = Microsoft Office VB.NET and PIAs - Development is slow and painful, with a huge overhead of knowledge required because of the conflict between .NET managed code and COM and the need to take own responsibility for COM cleanup. - Performance is worse - I am not productive at all - Cost = Microsoft Office + Visual Studio Standard Progress? I have compared VBA with "VB.NET and PIAs".

VBA
- Development is extremely rapid
- Performance is great
- I am productive
- Cost = Microsoft Office

VB.NET and PIAs
- Development is slow and painful, with a huge overhead of knowledge required because of the conflict between .NET managed code and COM and the need to take own responsibility for COM cleanup.
- Performance is worse
- I am not productive at all
- Cost = Microsoft Office + Visual Studio Standard

Progress?

]]> By: JP http://www.codeforexcelandoutlook.com/blog/2008/05/vba-rant-1/#comment-1372 JP Thu, 08 May 2008 22:55:00 +0000 http://jimmypena.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/vba-rant-1/#comment-1372 You seem pretty confident that VBA will be gone eventually, so we're in agreement. It makes me wonder what the future of Office is, and especially what Microsoft's strategy is here; we'll see future versions still supporting a largely unchanged VBA, until eventually macros start to break (it started already with features like FileSearch which is unavailable in Excel 2007). Personally I have no plans to upgrade past 2003. You seem pretty confident that VBA will be gone eventually, so we're in agreement. It makes me wonder what the future of Office is, and especially what Microsoft's strategy is here; we'll see future versions still supporting a largely unchanged VBA, until eventually macros start to break (it started already with features like FileSearch which is unavailable in Excel 2007). Personally I have no plans to upgrade past 2003.

]]> By: Jon Peltier http://www.codeforexcelandoutlook.com/blog/2008/05/vba-rant-1/#comment-1371 Jon Peltier Thu, 08 May 2008 11:35:00 +0000 http://jimmypena.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/vba-rant-1/#comment-1371 "code will start getting harder to find"<br/><br/>You can still find lots of VB6 code on the internet, and VB6 was phased out several years ago. Good thing, because it can be dropped into a VBA project without much hassle. VBA has been much more widely used, and I suspect VBA sources will live on for many years on the web, after (not <i>if</i>) it is deprecated a few versions from now.<br/><br/>"you would almost have to be a professional developer to get code working in another language to interact with Office"<br/><br/>This is true: the technical barrier to entry for VSTO and .Net is much higher than it was for XLM and VBA. "code will start getting harder to find"

You can still find lots of VB6 code on the internet, and VB6 was phased out several years ago. Good thing, because it can be dropped into a VBA project without much hassle. VBA has been much more widely used, and I suspect VBA sources will live on for many years on the web, after (not if) it is deprecated a few versions from now.

"you would almost have to be a professional developer to get code working in another language to interact with Office"

This is true: the technical barrier to entry for VSTO and .Net is much higher than it was for XLM and VBA.

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