Give the VBA IDE a major overhaul finally
It's been over 20 years since the VBA IDE was created in its present form. MS has since created a number of modern and efficient development environments. Even if the VBA environment has long been referred to as outdated: it is simply the everyday reality for the majority of professional Office developers (especially all serious Access developers). I can not imagine that it lacks capacity to MS to bring the VBA IDE into a more contemporary form.
To insist that it would not be worthwhile to invest in an improved IDE, is roughly as if an automaker refuses any further developments in the wheels for 20 years, with the note that they would someday replace all wheels by air cushions.
I am thinking about things like "real" IntelliSense (comparable to that in current Visual Studio languages), extensive auto code completion, syntax checks that support the coder and do not hinder him/her, a much better integrated help system, refactoring tools, etc..
In other words: Not a newly decorated IDE, but simply an up-to-date developement tool like those in modern IDEs (Visual Studio, Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJ IDEA etc.). I do believe that this would not be "old wine in new bottles" but a valuable "productivity tool" for all Office developers.
Heinz Högel
shared this idea
24 comments
-
Anders Ebro (TheSmileyCoder)
commented
Considering how many people must be spending a huge part of their workday in the Office VBE, I don't understand why there are no development effort in this.
-
Juan Soto, Access MVP
commented
To all of you reading this post, your view is essential to getting a new IDE experience, vote today and leave a comment on why a new IDE will improve productivity, enhance the user experience and foster increased office development. The Microsoft of today is a data driven company and if we can all lend our voice to this idea it has a great chance of becoming a reality. Vote and promote it today!
-
VB6 Programming and VBA Programming
commented
Microsoft could do this and merge the VB6 programming language and IDE with an updated VBA IDE...
https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versiAnd for Office365 this approach would allow VBA to be cross-compiled to JavaScript...
https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio-2015/suggestions/12363366-vb6-programming-waking-a-sleeping-giant-msdn-ma -
Mark Burns
commented
I am casting a vote for this even though I already Know that Microsoft has announced that they have NO INTENTION of doing any significant changes or improvements to VBA or its IDE.