"VBA." prefix, for example VBA.Randomize vs Randomize, what's the difference?

Question

I've just checked some GitHub code and it was full of statements preceded by "VBA.", which work just fine without it.

What's the reason behind adding "VBA."?

Answer 1

VBA is a reference library which tells the compiler to specifically use the VBA-specific implementation of the method or function which follows.

The reason for this is because there might be other referenced libraries which might have priority by default, and the coder does not know what references you might have or in which order they are.

If you had some other implementation of Randomize and it was higher-up in the order of references, the compiler would expect the parameters to match that particular implementation's format and also use that particular bit of code.

Placing VBA. in front of VBA keywords merely ensures that the version that will be used is the one that the author intended and not some other version.