VBA is dead!!

[DavidT]

Per Autodesk(r) Developer News - April 24, 2009,

*****************************

5. Migrating VBA to VB.NET

VBA is reaching the end of its life, and we do not expect it to remain part
of AutoCAD® for many more releases.
As promised in previous DevNews, the ADN DevTech team has started work on
providing information to help you migrate your VBA code to VB .NET. We
therefore invite you to watch our latest DevTV production “AutoCAD VBA to .
NET Migration Basics†– showcasing a beta version of our VBA to VB conversion
utility that we hope will significantly speed-up your code conversion efforts.


We’d love to get your feedback on this presentation – and particularly on the
VBA to VB conversion utility - so we can improve it, and on any additional
migration information you would like to see presented in more detail. Please
send your feedback to (e-mail address removed).

In addition, please email (e-mail address removed) if you are interested in
offering VBA to .NET porting services to other partners and customers, or if
you are in need of such services yourself.

**************************
Not sure where they are getting their information, but I think it has little
to do with the end of VBA and everything to do with their dropping their
FMDesktop application (Access/VBA based).

Any thoughts?

 

[Allen Browne]

Per Autodesk(r) Developer News - April 24, 2009,
... we do not expect it to remain part of AutoCAD® ...

Your posting is not relevant to Microsoft Access (the desktop database)
which will continue to use VBA for the foreseeable future.

 

[Mr. B]

Allen,

I really believe that the posting actuall is at least somewhat relevant,
espceially if you look at the last line or so, "it has little to do with the
end of VBA and everything to do with their dropping their FMDesktop
application (Access/VBA based)."

The fact that Autodesk may now be moving totally away from usisng Access as
the basis for their facility management applicaiton could affect many Access
users.

I actually got my start in MS Access way back in version 2.0 when I first
started linking data from Access to objects in AutoCad to create a home grown
facility management package. At the time, there was not much available so we
had to do it the hard way.

Just my two cents worth.

Mr. B
askdoctoraccess dot com

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

5. Migrating VBA to VB.NET

VBA is reaching the end of its life, and we do not expect it to remain part
of AutoCAD® for many more releases.

That's their opinion and not necessarily Microsoft's. VBA will be
around for a while longer. And these opinions were shouted out to
the world when VB.Net first came out.

Not sure where they are getting their information, but I think it has little
to do with the end of VBA and everything to do with their dropping their
FMDesktop application (Access/VBA based).

Any thoughts?

I have no opinion on AutoCad or their products as I've never worked
with them.

Tony

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

The heading use for this post is rather rotten and most unfair.

Anyone reading the heading and not the document could walk away spreading
some VERY serious rumors about the programming language that many of us use
to make our living with.

It has been publicly confirmed by Microsoft that there will be a 64bit
version of office.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...ffice-2010-will-come-in-32-bit-and-64-bit.ars

I sure you are aware that macros in word and excel are VBA, and there is
100's of millions (likely BILLIONS) of documents that thus will rely on VBA
for the foreseeable future.

Thus A 64 bit version of office secures a very long and bright term future
for VBA....

 

[David W. Fenton]

I sure you are aware that macros in word and excel are VBA, and
there is 100's of millions (likely BILLIONS) of documents that
thus will rely on VBA for the foreseeable future.

Not to mention that VBA was dropped from a recent version of Excel
for Mac and will be returned to the next version. That is a pretty
good indicator that VBA is not going anywhere.

 

[Jack Leach]

For all the reasons above, VBA will not be replaced anytime in the near
future, IMHO. VBA is a pretty easy language compared to just about any
others considering the scope that the language covers and the functionality
that it provides.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft is well aware of the fact that most
psuedo-programmer do-it-yourself extreme power users but not quite
'professional developers' (such as myself and presumably a large amount of
other vba users) rely on vba in its relative simplicity. I would guess that
MS figures this might also be a good way to get people locked with a wide
variety of their products.

MS doesn't seem to be giving many signs that they are preparing to do away
with it (on the contrary), and I suspect Autodesk is looking to update their
IDE (as they have in many other areas of the application within the last few
releases) in an attempt to remain on the cutting edge. Again, in my very
humble opinion.

But it's like the New York Lotto... Hey, you never know.

--
Jack Leach
www.tristatemachine.com

"I haven't failed, I've found ten thousand ways that don't work."
-Thomas Edison (1847-1931)