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VBA was used for tons of enterprise applications in the late '90s and early oughts. The implementation in things like Excel was surprisingly powerful and they

VBA was used for tons of enterprise applications in the late '90s and early oughts. The implementation in things like Excel was surprisingly powerful and they had to sort of dial it back because they realized it was a huge security risk. (You could open up a spreadsheet that was a powerful virus.) In the '90s when we were developing a 3D game (in C++) I made an early iteration of the level designer in VBA on Excel. You would color cells in a spreadsheet and then hit a button, and the button would output a text file that told the game engine what mesh or object to put where. Terrible way to do it, but a great way to work fast in those primitive days.

7thaccount 2y ago
People still use VBA all the time. I think of it differently than the basic language of the 80s or even the more powerful commercial compilers used by some today like PowerBasic. VBA is just so highly tied to Excel. There is a new way to also script Excel with some kind of typescript. It's built into the latest version of Excel and seems to be more straightforward.
- nxobject 2y ago
  At this point, I think there are multiple sufficiently general-purpose languages bolted onto Excel if you have 365 (sadly enough, I work at a place with LTSC) - Power Query, the array language subset of Excel's formula language, Python, Office.js, VBA. But if you're collaborating with people I think you only predictably have VBA.
HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
Ugh! I still have nightmares about having to write the Validation procedure documents for a medical device production Quality system written in VBA/Excel. The program had started out as some scientist's desktop tool and somehow over the years, morphed into an actual production tool that now needed to be formally validated since we needed to make a change to it. Worst combination of spaghetti code and Big Ball of Mud that I've ever seen. I had the misfortune of being the only SW dev who was senior enough to do the task and who wasn't busy at the time, so I drew short straw! I shudder to think of the millions of dollars of product that have been shipped as a result of that code!
Narishma 2y ago
IIRC the first couple of versions of the Unreal Engine editor were written in VB.

7thaccount 2y ago

People still use VBA all the time. I think of it differently than the basic language of the 80s or even the more powerful commercial compilers used by some today like PowerBasic. VBA is just so highly tied to Excel. There is a new way to also script Excel with some kind of typescript. It's built into the latest version of Excel and seems to be more straightforward.

nxobject 2y ago
At this point, I think there are multiple sufficiently general-purpose languages bolted onto Excel if you have 365 (sadly enough, I work at a place with LTSC) - Power Query, the array language subset of Excel's formula language, Python, Office.js, VBA. But if you're collaborating with people I think you only predictably have VBA.

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

Ugh! I still have nightmares about having to write the Validation procedure documents for a medical device production Quality system written in VBA/Excel. The program had started out as some scientist's desktop tool and somehow over the years, morphed into an actual production tool that now needed to be formally validated since we needed to make a change to it. Worst combination of spaghetti code and Big Ball of Mud that I've ever seen. I had the misfortune of being the only SW dev who was senior enough to do the task and who wasn't busy at the time, so I drew short straw! I shudder to think of the millions of dollars of product that have been shipped as a result of that code!

Narishma 2y ago

IIRC the first couple of versions of the Unreal Engine editor were written in VB.