Bill Jelen: Microsoft just released a fledgling version of TypeScript in Excel that will, in 20 years or so, supplant VBA

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Bill Jelen has just posted a fascinating video of the “Excel VBA Killer” known as TypeScript. For 16 years, people asked me if Excel VBA will be aroun
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GreatAndPowerfulTech, abbodi86, Kirsty

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So, I’m good until I’m 97. Guess I don’t have to learn a new language! LOL
You’d think they would have made PowerScript the Macro Language since they already have a PS module that can read/write Excel files.

😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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GreatAndPowerfulTech

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Language-wise, PowerShell is probably a better replacement for VBA than TypeScript, just because the style of the languages are fairly similar.

The problem is that PS requires .NET, and using the .NET runtime just to execute macros would incur a pretty significant performance and memory overhead.  .NET also doesn’t run natively in a browser, so they’d have to come up with some weird solution for the web version of Office.

Office has already included the ability to run add-ins with JavaScript for several years, so adding in TypeScript support is going to be much easier.  It also means that one language is used for writing both add-ins and macros, which is what we had with VBA.

 

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