CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vbabasic
divyam sureka
divyam sureka

Reputation: 57

Are VBA and BASIC the same thing?

I was thinking about learning BASIC, because a friend told me that that is the language being used in Excel, but when I searched on net, it showed that VBA is the language being used to code in Excel. So I was confused whether both of them are the same thing. If they are not is it that both of them can be used to code in Excel? If it is so, which is better for a person oriented with OOP based Java language?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2871

Answers (1)

dnep
dnep

Reputation: 562

VBA is one BASIC

There are many different languages on the BASIC family and not a "standard" BASIC. VBA is acronym for Visual Basic for Applications. In its case, the name actually tells much of the story.

The first BASIC language was developed in 1964 as a general purpose language, relatively easy for non-scientists. Since then, many variations emerged. Diferent versions of BASIC were available on the ROM of most microcomputers on the 80's (MSX, Commodore etc.) and were the main languages used by hobbyists programmers. Each version had different syntax and semantics and moderate effort was required to port programs between plataforms using different BASICs.

In 1992, Microsoft developed a version for Windows that combined BASIC code with Drag'n'Drop UI design, and named it Visual Basic. Thus Visual Basic is a version of BASIC featurning Visual UI design for developing MS Windows programs.

When Microsoft decided to implement macro languages for the Microsof Office products these were BASIC variants (WordBasic, AccessBasic...) but later all these were unified to use a single language - derived from Visual Basic 6.0, and named Visual Basic for Applications. It was later adopted in some other non-Microsoft applications such as Corel Draw and WordPerfect. Thus, Visual Basic for Applications is a version of BASIC featurning Visual UI design for extending MS Office (and certain other) Applications.

So, all in all, VBA is just a (very specialized) version of the BASIC language.

Upvotes: 14

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