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Hi,
I've been a VBA (Excel) user for many years and was wondering whether VBA as we know (and love) is destined to fade into the sunset in favor of VBA.NET (like VB vs VB.NET). As far as I can tell, classic VB and VBA come from the same cloth and with VB.NET coming on strong, I've been wondering what's in store for VBA. Anybody have insight they care to share?
VBAhack
VBA will still have some use as .NET hasent got a complete hold over all of Office.
Currently Excel and Word are the two Office suite products that are most programmed against so M$ decided
that they would use .NET to supercharge these two products first.
There is two ways that you can program against Excel and Word using .NET technologies.
The first is the regular VB.NET or C#. These are only moderately different from VB6/VBA programming techniques.
The second is an additional program the integrates with VS.NET only and not VB.NET or C# alone. Its called
Visual Studio Tools for Office 2003 or simply VSTO 2003. With VSTO you can do much much more then you
ever code with allot less code too! I have started using it and I think its a major improvement and splits Excel
and Word wide open for us to do whatever we want. :thumb:
I just wanted to point out this small article by Brad. It outlines the new anounced prices
for VS 2005 products, including VSTO 2005 - $799.00!
RobDog888,
Thanks for your replies. I guess a pertinent question is that when I eventually replace Excel 2002, will my beloved programs still work or will they need minor/moderate/major modifications? I seem to recall a few years back when Excel macros changed from a macro sheet to the current VBE, both styles were supported for a version or 2 of Excel (or can we still use the old macro sheets even today?). Maybe we'll have something similiar?
VBAhack
O.K. so from what I can tell you're saying that VBA isn't going to be replaced by its own .NET version, and is best used from Visual Studio.NET compared to Visual Basic.NET?
Did I understand that correctly?
Welcome to the Forums twand500.
Visual Studio.NET is the suite of programs like VB, C#, VC++, etc. You can write code for Office programs in either of the
programs. Just depends on your skills.
You are correct, VBA will not be "completely" replaced, but will work with .NET code. More likely, it is just going to be there
for backwards compatibility and
development migration for a version or two.
VBAhack, Excel 2002 code is compatible with Excel 2003. No real changes, only additional new functions mainly.
There may be a few changes but they would only require minor modifications only from 2002.
I would like to get more input on this from others members so I think I will make this a sticky for a while. :)
I was just mulling this over the other day, after I stumbled across this article:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
It would seem to me that if in fact Microsoft is moving away from backwards compatibility, they are going to be in for quite a shock on the bottom line. Most of the userbase for Office that would utilize VBA is business oriented, and as such are cost-averse. If upgrading to a new version of Office is going to break all of the company's existing code, I would say that there is about a 0 percent chance that they would upgrade for a long time. Look at the small penetration of .Net on the client side. Same issue. As much as MS would like to drag everyone kicking and screaming into .Net, if the corporates don't want to go, they aren't going to pull it off. So, the real question is whether or not people will upgrade to VBA.Net without back-compat, and methinks no.
That was a good long article! What I got out of it was that it will just take some time for the majority to be
using Office 2003 and .NET. Although, they seem to be breaking the rules of backwards compatibility so its all going down
the drain in a few years with the next release of windows anyways. The actual time duration will be how
long it takes for people to upgrade their windows and hardware to run it.
Eventually people will upgrade to the next version of windows and then we can get ready for yet another change in the
development technology.
Based on what I've read, there when the next version of Office rolls out, VBA will be for all intents and purposes non-existant (Although I'm sure there will be some sort fo compatibility layer that will let older VBA stuff). What will be in its place will be .NET. Now, here is where it gets interesting.
Currently, your choice is VBA... which is a stripped down version of VB, and with a few things bolted on. And it's VB based. When the .NET capable Office rolls out, it will be the FULL compliment of the .NET languages. And yes, that's correct, languageS. Plural. VB.NET, C#.NET, plus what ever else there is, J# I think will be supported too. You'll be able to write the macros and other items in the full version of the languages. AND if I remember right, you can do it from VS, you don't necessarily need to open Word or Excel.
But that may be the interpretation of the stuff I've read over the last year. I could be wrong. It's been known to happen.
Tg
I think one of the selling points of VBA, and Office, is that you don't have to be a "programmer" to use a lot of it. A lot of VBA is done by people as a sideline to their regular job. If MS makes .Net Office standard, they'll have a bunch of pissed off users who can't do their programming any longer, especially if the new Office breaks their old code. Meaning Office won't get bought.
Look at pc manufacturers. Most give you Windows, but Dell, probably the biggest, now ships with Corel. I know nothing about programming for Corel, but it seems MS is in for a rude awakening. For that matter, I don't personally know of any business in my area (admittedly, not home to Fortune 500 companies) that has upgraded past Office 2000. That app does about all most people want. The only real advantage I've heard of for upgrading is that Access 2003 supports stored procedures, and if you can work with them, Access probably isn't your first choice of db, nor are you someone whose sideline is programming for Office.
I know there are plenty of places where programming Access, Excel, etc, is someone's primary job, but that's a niche market. For every person who programs Excel, for example, there are probably 1000 or more who just record macros, or at most just want some bump to what they have.
The casual VBA programmer will still be able to do everything they have been able to do up to Office 2003.
In the future release of Office (still a couple of years to go, I think) is where the tide will turn. Even then when it
comes out companies will still be running 2003 for many years before they upgrade. I have some client still on
Office 97. Thats 8+ years without upgrading. So if the same will be for 2003 + 8 = 2011 before they will really
be in the minority.
The real point to make is that people will be drawn into newer versions when they see the capabilities and benefits
of Office automation with .NET and with VSTO.
So I think all the VBA users can still rest easy for a few more years until they see they have missed the bandwagon
and need to make the change.