View Single Post
  #6   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.programming
Don Don is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 487
Default How will we create UDF's on 64 bit OS after support for VBA is

Actually VS2008 was released last month. I've just downloaded the 90 day
trial and I will likely purchase an MSDN subscription before it expires. At
first glance, I sort of appreciate the increased security from the point of
view of someone tyring to distribute new office addins as a commercial
product, but OMG it is complex compared to making a VBA xla file available
for use on a public or shared drive among a trusted community of people all
working together in the same company. While I agree backwards compatibility
with VBA will be around for a long time, I also believe it will be a
relatively short time before we are all running 64 bit desktop OS and there
will likely be new features we need access too that will never be back ported
to VBA, so I want to started on what appears to be a rather steep learning
curve.

It's kind of a deja vu experience ... I remember at first thinking windows
cmd scripting capability was useless compared to unix. Over years I've
learned it is actually very useful but full of unnecessary complexity and
inconsistencies. My first experiences with VBA are better, but it too has
it's strange behaviors (default methods, extremely obtuse and of questionable
utility "on error" model and such) but I have grown to live in comfort with
it, and use various additional features through other libraries (like regex
and scripting.doctionary) that make it very powerful. I'm sure I'll be there
with Com/vsto in a while ... but probably not a short while :-)

"Chip Pearson" wrote:

If you are really going to move to the NET world, you should wait for Visual
Studio 2008, due out, I think, Q1 2008. It comes standard with a new
version of VSTO integrated into the IDE. You'll get a lot more templates,
depending on what Office programs you have installed. In VS2008, I get 14
Office 2007 project templates and 10 Office 2003 project templates.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel, 10 Years
Pearson Software Consulting
www.cpearson.com
(email on the web site)


"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks. Your web site will be quite helpful. Although I have a few years
expereince using VBA I am new to Visual Studio and know nothing of windows
programming or .NET. For sure there is lots of info out there - right now
I'm "drinking from the firehose".

"Chip Pearson" wrote:

Create a VB.NET Class Library and write your functions in that library.
This
is straight NET, no VSTO required.
http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/Creati...nctionLib.aspx

Personally, I think NET will be MUCH more tightly integrated with Office
(not via VSTO/SE, which strikes me as something of a hack job to get
*something* NET-related into Office) long before we see the demise of
VBA.
(Remember, XLM is/was supported 12 years after is was made "obsolete" by
VBA.) There are millions upon millions of lines of VBA out in the world.
I
doubt MS would abandon all of that code. VB6 is still fully supported (as
in
it works, not as in MS provides tech support or updates) 6 years after is
was made obsolete by NET.

It is just my opinion, but NET has a long way to go to make it easily
integrated with Office.

--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel, 10 Years
Pearson Software Consulting
www.cpearson.com
(email on the web site)


"Don" wrote in message
...
I read somewhere that Microsoft plans to drop support for VBA/VBE in
office
apps in future releases of office for 64 bit OS. Remembering how fast
the
uptake of 16 to 32 bit systems was, I figure it won't be long that most
office workstations will be 64 bit OS, so I decided to learn about
VSTO.

One of the first things I learned was that you can't create UDFs in
VSTO -
you have to use VBA (while VBA can interact with VSTO objects, you
still
need
VBA).

So, the missing piece of info I have not been able to track down is how
we
will be able to create UDF's in excel for environments where VBA is no
longer
supported. Perhaps I have misundestood something I read?