VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

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."

Comments

Time for Java

[teknopurge]

Not a troll.

Java has a scripting extension. No, not Javascript(only), but you can plug various Scripting languages into it, or use Judo which is the real endgame for this problem.

Hello I am a Mac and I am a PC.

[LWATCDR]

So Mac you thought you where so funny. Well take this! "PC throws a chair label Cross platform compatability right out a Window".
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.

[TW Atwater]

Let me know when they dump Windows.

Re:Cross Platform?

[ricegf]

This could be good news! We currently have to support MS Office versions of our customizations for Windows, and OOo versions for Linux / Unix. Since Microsoft is forcing us to go back and rewrite the MS Office versions if we upgrade our Windows apps - why not just upgrade to OOo on all platforms, avoid the rewrite cost, and maintain just one set of customizations going forward!

Yes, yes, I see a great "employee suggestion" fattening my wallet this year...

Re:Microsoft Tools...

[geminidomino]

I wrote a bunch of VBA many years ago (hey, I was young and needed the money :P), You should have been a hooker. It would have done less damage to your soul and self-respect. :)

Re:Difference between VST(O|A) and VBA?

[gstoddart]

What is the difference? What do you get by replacing VBA with VSTO or VSTA?

Screwed over and locked in, with no cross-platform support?

Flippancy aside, Microsoft trots out what they decree is the Next Big Thing about every 4-5 years. In the process, they act like what they used to call the New Hotness is a smelly pile they want to get away from, and drop support for it. Of course, it was a smelly pile in the first place, but it was their smelly pile and they wanted you to buy it and spent a lot of money convincing you it was good.

In the mean time, companies have spent a lot of money supporting and implementing the technologies, buying training, books, etc. Then you re-start the cycle all over again. This is just the next in a long-line of technologies that Microsoft has swept under the rug and moved on. Then a whole new gravy train starts.

Of course, they get the added benefit that you will have even less support and functionality on Mac OS. And, if that is the case, then why would someone by a Mac when they need Office?

I suspect this is 1/3 "technical", 1/3 "strategic", and 1/3 "because we can, bitches".

In the end, who is to stop them? The customers never leave en masse like people have been predicting for as long as I can remember. People adopt the technologies. And, everyone just sucks it up and gets on with their day.

Trotting new, unfinished technologies and dropping older, unfinished technologies and charging for it is Microsoft's bread and butter. It's one big hamster wheel. :-P

Cheers

Re:Cross Platform?

[mvdwege]

Does ODF have a scripting language defined?

Wrong question. ODF is a document format, it defines the form of the data. The data does not determine what tools must be used to process it, except in cases of proprietary formats, where the only tools are the vendor supplied ones. Tying the format closely to the tools meant to process it, to the point of embedding the processing code in the data, is one of the design blunders perpetuated by Microsoft, which gave us such wonderful 'innovations' as Word Macro Viruses.

ODF can in principle be processed by any language that has a decent XML processing library available, or through the API of the document editing tools. The leading API at the moment is OpenOffice.org's, which is open to any language with bindings to its UNO component model, including the language shipping with OpenOffice.org, a version of BASIC resembling VBA.

Mart