After reading the posts on this forum regarding the subject of this post,
valid questions remain. 1) what is the value in switching from VBA to VSTO,
2) is there much of a movement to switch. My concerns focus on usability,
skill marketability, security of the code, and conversion of old code.

A summary of the previous posts regarding VSTO suggests that the language is
not yet mature, but simplification and ease of use should improve with
VS2008. (Chip, I've condensed and paraphrased some of your previous
comments). In addition VBA should remain mainstream in the near term, and
support for VBA should continue for the foreseeable future.

Any input that adds a little color to the issue is appreciated.

The big value IMO is that the development environment in VSTO is far richer
than VBA, and you will be aligning yourself to MS's avowed intent; they will
develop VSTO further, VBA is going nowhere (MS would like that to be away,
but it isn't going there in a hurry). VSTO is not ready a fully mature
product, it is getting better but there are still many problems, and MS
still don't seem to have a good story for integrating with Excel/Word and
the like.

I am not aware of any rush by professional VBA developers to switch to VSTO.
A couple that have tried have been chastened by the experience. At the
moment, I would venture that VSTO is used far more in other fields, such as
web development, not Excel based solutions. It will increase, but there is
still a huge legacy of VBA, and it is far simpler for a business
professional to use VBA and build solutions, rather than trying to get to
grips with the dot.met paradigm.

The one thing that is common to both, and at this point is the most
important IMO, is understanding the Excel OM, and knowing how to manipulate
that.

--
HTH

Bob

(there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my addy)

"AMDiesen" wrote in message
...
After reading the posts on this forum regarding the subject of this post,
valid questions remain. 1) what is the value in switching from VBA to
VSTO,
2) is there much of a movement to switch. My concerns focus on usability,
skill marketability, security of the code, and conversion of old code.

A summary of the previous posts regarding VSTO suggests that the language
is
not yet mature, but simplification and ease of use should improve with
VS2008. (Chip, I've condensed and paraphrased some of your previous
comments). In addition VBA should remain mainstream in the near term, and
support for VBA should continue for the foreseeable future.

Any input that adds a little color to the issue is appreciated.

Thanks Bob.

Another three reasons:

1. With VSTO you get the ability to deploy add-in code independently of
workbooks. If like me you have many users and frequent updates of the VBA
ad-ins you have developed, this may be a significant advantage.

2. You can use the DataGridView control which is a far more flexible and
versatile data control than anything accessible through VBA. I have got very
attached to it after seeing how easily you can produce neat interfaces using
this control and .NET forms.

3. .NET code signing offers much better code security than VBA. This is an
issue that's likely to get more important.

I am making the transition slowly (and sometimes painfully) but I think it
will be worth it. Good luck and here's encouragement to try it!
--
Work performed in the spirit of service is worship...Baha''i Writings


"AMDiesen" wrote:

After reading the posts on this forum regarding the subject of this post,
valid questions remain. 1) what is the value in switching from VBA to VSTO,
2) is there much of a movement to switch. My concerns focus on usability,
skill marketability, security of the code, and conversion of old code.

A summary of the previous posts regarding VSTO suggests that the language is
not yet mature, but simplification and ease of use should improve with
VS2008. (Chip, I've condensed and paraphrased some of your previous
comments). In addition VBA should remain mainstream in the near term, and
support for VBA should continue for the foreseeable future.

Any input that adds a little color to the issue is appreciated.