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VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

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71–75 of 75 posts

Re: VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

#71
post #7

I find PowerShell, the language, verbose and not very ergonomic. This ship has sailed, but I wish Microsoft had done something to make Windows automation a little closer to other platforms, so that it could benefit from the good software that exists on other platforms. It seems that VBA will continue to exist as the programming front end for MS Office, which is unfortunate. They had announced Python support for Excel…

> They had announced Python support for Excel a while back and I wish it was better promoted as a viable VBA replacement

But the existing implementation of Python means that it's not even close to a viable replacement lmao

Re: VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

#72
post #7

I find PowerShell, the language, verbose and not very ergonomic. This ship has sailed, but I wish Microsoft had done something to make Windows automation a little closer to other platforms, so that it could benefit from the good software that exists on other platforms. It seems that VBA will continue to exist as the programming front end for MS Office, which is unfortunate. They had announced Python support for Excel…

> good software that exists on other platforms

You mean like AppleScript?

Re: VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may have a separate timeline but it does seem to hint at going out the door in similar order on Office as well. I think the Python in Excel stuff is still in beta but things like lambdas, regex or Office Scripts all actually work (even on the web versions) and start taking big bites out of why you'd want to look at VB. New Outlook dropped VB support even on the desktop and I don't think they plan on maintaining se…

Python in Excel could have been amazing, except Microsoft executes it in a cloud environment and require a Cloud Service account to even open spreadsheets with it in. I'd strongly recommend people avoid Python in Excel, it is a Trojan Horse into forcing you to subscribe to access your own spreadsheets.

AFAIK, Python in Excel is fine, but only if you don't use Microsoft's: https://www.xlwings.org/

Re: VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

#74
post #15
post #7

I find PowerShell, the language, verbose and not very ergonomic. This ship has sailed, but I wish Microsoft had done something to make Windows automation a little closer to other platforms, so that it could benefit from the good software that exists on other platforms. It seems that VBA will continue to exist as the programming front end for MS Office, which is unfortunate. They had announced Python support for Excel…

> It seems that VBA will continue to exist as the programming front end for MS Office They already recommend that new projects use their JS-based Office Scripts instead.

Not sure about other people but most of my apps I've made actually can't be made in Office Scripts... They are useless for my needs.

Re: VBScript deprecation: Timelines and next steps

#75

Probably one of the most maddening things I have ever worked with, and that is saying something. Though a huge part of the blame for that goes to COM and registration, interop stuff, which is more Windows than VBScript and also probably never truly going away.

COM is still actively being used. Not sure why you think it's a problem with windows too. COM is and always has been quite revolutionary imo.
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