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The company I work at is run on Excel sheets. Several of those sheets have some form of VBA code embedded. I'm doing some maintenance on them, but it feels really dated.
What's going to happen to Office VBA?
Why hasn't Microsoft released an embedded .NET macro language for Office?
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Is VBA Worth Learning in 2022? Yes, VBA is worth learning in 2022. It's a broad programming language that encompasses several topics of data analytics. VBA's usefulness lies in its simple to advanced applications, such as analytics projects, binary codes, and Microsoft Office scripts.
Run VBA code when close or open workbookEnable the workbook, press Alt + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window. 2. Double click ThisWorkbook in Project – VBAProject pane to open the ThisWorkbook (Code) window.
Microsoft is finally planning to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in a variety of Office apps. The change will apply to Office files that are downloaded from the internet and include macros, so Office users will no longer be able to enable certain content with a simple click of a button.
Short answer: you're probably fine for a while yet.
Long answer: VB6 (which is what VBA really is) is pretty much a dead, unsupported language, last updated a decade back with an IDE from the same period. It's only still around because it's embedded in Office and there are millions of Office apps that would stop working if VBA was removed or changed. Not to mention millions of mightily annoyed users.
So how to move forward? Can Office be re-implemented in managed code? Does Microsoft want to do that at all? Are they going to make an even bigger backward-compatibility break than the Ribbon and just discard the notion of macro recording and interpreted embedded code? I just can't see my users taking to VB.NET in Visual Studio, using COM Interop and whatnot.
If I had to put money on one outcome (and I wouldn't want to bet much even then) I'd be looking at the Dynamic Language Runtime and the fact that several languages are in various states of preparedness to run on it. Suppose the DLR, with some suitable replacement or wrapper for the Office app COM model, were to replace the VB6 runtime. Further, suppose VBA were implemented as a DLR language. Now legacy VBA will continue to run, just on a different (modern, supported) interpreter and into the bargain, we can program Excel macros in Python, Ruby or whatever other DLR language takes our fancy.
But that's just my best guess - I have no idea whether or not it's anywhere near to waht will actually happen. I'd surely love to be able to program Excel macros in Ruby, though.
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