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Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by corty on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @10:19AM (#27050159)
There is already VisualBasic for Applications which is just similar to Python, only with begin/end-blocks instead of indentation. And with a little fiddling you can also use JScript/WSH to remote-control some parts of Excel, as well as all the .Net languages.
Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by kumarvvr on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @10:59AM (#27050712)
> which is just similar to Python

What? Am I the only one who hates VBA with a burning hatred of a thousand suns?

Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by andy81 on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @11:55AM (#27051541)
That's a common opinion.

The object model and IDE are a big part of it though, maybe even more so than syntax horrors like while..wend vs do while..loop.

Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by corty on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @12:00PM (#27051615)
The libraries in VisualBasic (before .net) do suck. But syntactically, Python and Basic are very close. I hate both very much, because all the nice features that make programming fun are lacking. Both feel very much like using a childs' toy instead of proper tools.
Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by auxym on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @01:10PM (#27052640)
VBA is very 90s. As in, similar to 90s era java, right up to the built-in IDE.
Re:Advancing Excel as a programming language [audio] by Vaslo on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @11:27AM (#27051138)
I code in VBA constantly as a Finance Manager. I also spend a lot of time learning Python and used it throughout a CS Degree. VBA and Python are not alike at all IMO.

You are right that you can use something like C# to manipulate Excel files, but there isn't a ton of tutorials on it, which makes it difficult and prohibitive to learn.