Re: Word 2004 VBA -> Applescript

On 1/09/06 19:15, in article C11DB8B5.DCE78%berkowit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Paul
Berkowitz" <berkowit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Eventually (but no one knows how long) in some future version of Office Mac,
some version of .NET will be implemented for Office Mac, when there's a
Microsoft-supported CLR for the Mac (they're working on that now). When
Office Windows also switches to that, Mac and Windows programming will be
compatible again. (Yes, there's VB.NET already, but apparently there are
some flaws. Anyway, no one knows yet what the final setup will be.)

I've looked a bit into that topic and what strikes me is that the switch
from VB6 to VB.NET seem to have created a huge controversy on the Windows
side. See for instance:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jroxe/archive/2005/03/17/398325.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET#Controversy

The general feeling seems to be that Microsoft has simply abandoned the
"classic" Visual Basic developers and their huge code base. The comments,
some by MVPs, to Roxe's "open letter" are particularly telling in that
regard.

While I understand better now why it would not make much sense to spend
resources on bringing VBA to Intel Macs given the fact that VBA is
essentially dead _also_ on Windows, what really does not make sense is the
fact that Microsoft has decided to kill "classic" VB and VBA, period
(despite the huge virus issue, which must have weighted on their decision).

In that regard, the MacBU is simply following the lead of the whole company,
and it becomes harder to blame them for their decision, since it's
company-wide. But it doesn't take away the pain of the current "classic" VB
developers, on Macs _as_well_as_ PCs.

While on the Mac we have to start thinking about rewriting everything in AS,
on the PC side they have to rewrite everything for VB.NET (which seems to be
quite a bit of work despite the common "VB" name). And cross-platform
support is simply gone in the near future.

It will not come as a surprise then that on the Windows side the forced
switch to VB.NET seems neither popular nor, apparently, very successful
(though I haven't found any recent VB.NET vs VB6 adoption surveys, those
I've seen did not favor VB.NET at all).

And the same arguments I've been reading about the VBA disappearance on the
Mac have already appeared more than a year ago about that forced migration
to VB.NET on Windows: people threatening to stop upgrading their Office
version if VBA is gone, to switch to Open Office instead, and if they have
to learn a new language and rewrite everything anyway to simply forego any
Microsoft-made solution and adopt Java instead (or C#, for those still
willing to consider a Microsoft language: once bitten...).

In the end, what seems really surprising is that Microsoft would make what
seems to be an incredibly bad _business_ decision regarding VB and VBA on
_every_ platform.

I don't really mind learning AppleScript, nor even Obj-C if I need to. I
took up VB and REALbasic last year because those were the most practical
tools available to me to do what I needed. And in fact REALbasic still seems
to be my best option for now. But I'm a linguist by trade and learning
programming languages is not really an issue for me. It's even rather fun.
It takes a bit of time, that's all, time I don't always have, unfortunately.
But that's just a hobby for me, so that's OK.

But I can see why people -- and businesses especially -- would simply decide
not to upgrade at all, on Windows as well as on Mac OS, to VBA-deprived
versions of Office.

At least WinOffice 2007 will still support VBA. So that decision has bought
Microsoft some time. And on Macs, maybe the need for an Intel-native version
of Office will also save the MacBU's bacon, at least for casual users who do
not need cross-platform support beyond document formats. But do casual users
really need/buy Office anyway?

The more I think about, the more the decision to abandon "classic" VB/VBA
doesn't make sense to me.

And given the apparent misgivings on the Windows side about VB.NET, the
future of cross-platform development for Office applications is indeed very
murky ;-(

I'm not even sure that by a time a CLR would be available on Macs, VB.NET
would still be a viable development platform _anywhere_! At the very least
I'd sure think twice before committing to it.

What a strange world.

Best,

--
David-Artur Daix
Centre d'Études Anciennes
Département des Sciences de l'Antiquité
École Normale Supérieure
45 rue d'Ulm, 75230 Paris Cedex 05
<mailto:daix _AT_ ens _DOT_ fr>
<http://www.antiquite.ens.fr/index.html>
<http://www.greektranscoder.org>

.

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