What is planned to replace VBA?

[XP]

I know that VBA is still alive in Office 2007 and is reportedly (depending
upon which report you read) going to be supported for awhile. I love VBA, but
apparently VBA is going to be phased out. My feeling is that it is best to
get ahead of the game, welcome the change (and hopefully, improvements) and
begin learning the new thing.

So my question is, what is the new language that will replace VBA?

XML? VSTO? VSTA? I've heard and seen all these mentioned. Are there others I
don't know about?

What is the difference between them and what language should we really start
learning? What language will come incorporated into Office (as does VBA now)
that doesn't require another cash outlay of hundreds or thousands of dollars?

Any help or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

 

[JLGWhiz]

Don't really know, but you would think that with as many users as there are
with varying versions of Office out there, that Microsoft would come up with
a standard that fits all instead of going through this metamorphic routine.

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

As I understand it there is currently no plans to replace VBA. VBA will exist
in it's current format for the forseeable future. The issue is that they do
not intend to make any changes to it. So as XL changes and the object model
evolves VBA will not be able to address the new model. That is going to take
some time though so IMO it is a wait and see game as to which direction will
dominate in the future.

 

[Bernie Deitrick]

Jim,

So as XL changes and the object model
evolves VBA will not be able to address the new model.

Wouldn't VBA be able to address any object that is exposed to it? Like what happens when you set a
reference to another project or application?

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP

 

[Peter T]

apparently VBA is going to be phased out

Really? A quick search reveals several authorities sources that counter such
rumours, here's one

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2008/01/16/clarification-on-vba-support.aspx

"we have no plans to remove VBA from future versions of Office for Windows.
We understand that VBA is a critical capability for large numbers of our
customers; accordingly, there is no plan to remove VBA from future versions
of Excel."

My understanding is that whilst no improvements to VBA are planned, methods
and properties will be added as appropriate in Office-14 as they were in
Office2007.

I am not aware of any comment emanating from MS concerning VBA beyond
Office-14.

Regards,
Peter T

 

[ilia]

XML can't really replace VBA by itself. If anything, it will be VSTO,
and even then just to supplement it as it does now. VSTO provides
some great functionality that's not native to VBA, but it's just so
much easier to press Alt+F11 and start banging out code. VBA is a
licensed product, not exclusive to just MS applications... I don't
think they'll be phasing it out.

 

[Nick Hodge]

Ilia

(Opinion only, I know no more...)

I would imagine that VBA will be around in at least the next 10-12 years of
releases. It is far more important to Office than Excel4 macros ever were
and they are still supported in XL2007 after being 'discontinued' in XL5
(1993?). It will only have the major object model changes and gradually it
will become 'weaker' as the depth of properties, methods, events, etc will
just not get added as they are now.

MS and security concerns, dictate the code will need to be managed and
compiled, etc in the future, so I would bet on VSTO being a 'future-proof'
way as it supports all the main developer languages, VB, C#,C++, etc.
although they will need to do something with the Alt+F11 start coding
scenario we all love so much.

Crucially, I would bet on C# becoming the code variation of choice, but that
really is *total* speculation.

You may find that a flavour of XML is incorporated, like with the file
format and ribbon today for interoperability.

Just my £0.02

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
web: www.excelusergroup.org
web: www.nickhodge.co.uk

 

[Jon Peltier]

Actually, the object model evolves with Excel. The advances in Excel are
pretty much mirrored in the Excel 2007 VBA library. Other than the user
interface, but that's a rant of a different color.

The bigger issue is that the VB editor is not advancing, the VB controls are
looking tired, and VBA is less able to keep up with other advances which dot
net can access.

- Jon

 

[Jon Peltier]

Actually, the VBA license is only renewed for those third party applications
which have already implemented it. No new application can use VBA. This was
phased out sometime last year or the year prior.

- Jon