VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon 255
Nom du Keyboard writes "As Microsoft drops support for older Office file formats, it looks like Visual Basic for Applications is also going soon. Mac Office 2008 has dropped VBA in favor of enhanced support for AppleScript, and Office 2009 is scheduled to lose it in favor of Mac incompatible Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) or Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). This sounds like the Mother of All Backwards and Cross-Platform Incompatibilities — especially since there appears to be no transition period where both the old and new scripting languages will be simultaneously supported. And as past experience with Visual Studio .NET has shown, upgrade tools are far less than perfect."
Hello I am a Mac and I am a PC. (Score:5, Funny)
So what you going to do about Mister I am so much cooler than a PC!.
Mac pick up the phone.
"Hello Open Office org?, Yea this is Mac I have a message from Steve for you. How would you like a big pile of cash and about a hundred programers? Really great they will be right over."
Well, it's a start. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Microsoft Tools... (Score:5, Funny)
Unrelated VS jab?!? (Score:2, Funny)
1) It has nothing to do with the software in focus.
2) Converting from framework 1.0 to 1.1 was almost effortless, and while converting from 1.1 to 2.0 usually took a tad bit of refinement, compiling a 2.0 application for the 3.0 or 3.5 framework is trivial. VS.Net 2k8 has the option built in so that you can work on 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 framework compilations with nothing more than a project property change.
3) The VB6 to
That aside, dropping VBA seems like an INSANE thing to do. Not that I like VBA, it's existance is a thorn in my side. But the fact that VBA is so ingrained into the corporate atmosphere. MS is in a pretty rough spot with Office. Office 2k was a great product. Office 2k3 introduced only marginal improvements that were hard to justify to the accountants. Office 2k7 has some neat stuff, but with the new interface and no new functionality for the majority of users, justifying it to both the accountants AND users was difficult. Now the next version of Office is going to abandon VBA, which means that the IT development departments are going to have to either develop real apps for all the users who depend on those heavily modified excel spread sheets, or you're going to have to get some training on the new scripting language for your employees. Either way, that is a HUGE financial investment beyond the $300 license.
-Rick
Zero-based arrays (Score:4, Funny)
You Sig.. Windows Progs & Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Cross Platform? (Score:3, Funny)
Seems to remind me of some other smash hit from Redmond...Bob? Millenium Edition? DOS? What was that thing...
Shoehorn is a good word (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Time for Java (Score:5, Funny)
that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders."
(Alanna)
Sort of a troll but it's still funny.
Re:Die Visual Basic (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Time for Java (Score:5, Funny)
that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders."
Try species.
Baaa means YES.
Re:Time for Java (Score:3, Funny)
You are either incredibly macho, or trying to get someone mauled to death by bears for a very unusual reason.
Re:Cross Platform? (Score:5, Funny)
Have this madman removed.