VBA To Come Back To Mac
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the programming language used to construct macros in Microsoft Office applications and has enabled users to construct their own enhancements and adaptations – including the calculators and checklists available from AccountingWEB. Removing support from Mac versions of office could cause compatibility problems for mixed PC/Mac networks and sent the VBA programming community into crisis and raised concerns among programmers that Microsoft was abandoning it in favour of newer, more sophisticated programming environments such as Visual Studio and .NET.
In subsequent blog posts, Microsoft staffers insisted reports of VBA’s demise had been exaggerated and last week the company’s Mac business unit confirmed that it would bring back VBA-language support in the next release of Office for Mac.
“The team recognises that VBA-language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms. The Mac BU is always working to meet customers’ needs and already is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac,” the company said.
Erik Schwiebert, a member of Microsoft’s Mac team, expanded on the decision on his blog. “Yep, you read that right. VB is (well, will be) back, baby!” he wrote.
“When we came to the realization in 2006 that there was no way for us to keep VB in the product and still ship Office 2008 on any semblance of the schedule we wanted, we announced its removal, but kept looking at how to bring it back into the suite even before we shipped.” The company was listening to its users and VBA support has now been “locked into place” on the feature list for the next version.
Users who had a “dire need” for Visual Basic were advised to stick with Mac Office 2004 until the next version is released – sometime around 2012.
“For all the wringing-of-hands and gnashing-of-teeth in the Mac community over the lack of VB, Mac Office 2008 has been selling really well,” he added.
Discussions over the future of VBA cast light on Excel’s great strength – adapaptability – but also highlight the lack of corporate control that “end-user computing” presents. VBA is the engine of DIY development, but these user enhancements to Excel worksheets were identified by PwC audit experts as one of the main reasons why spreadsheets were not adequate solutions for business processes subject to the requirements of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
As is often the case, Simon Murphy (aka Smurf on Spreadsheets had some interesting thoughts on the subject. End user development (EUD) should be encouraged and Excel VBA was one of the key tools available.
“Technically it may not be the best I accept, but culturally, in many of the numerate business disciplines it is the most familiar,” he wrote. “I totally accept that much EUD is not the best quality, however I would argue that if the customer is satisfied then its good enough. As the customer is the developer this only becomes an issue if systems get deployed beyond their original design brief.”
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