Microsoft Bringing HTML5 and JavaScript to Office 15 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Bringing HTML5 and JavaScript to Office 15

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41 pointsjalbertbowden20 comments

I wonder about the JS#/vendor lock in responses here in HN. We're talking about a macro language in MS Office, where your development and runtime environment is very well known (MS Office). I don't know how much portability demands you expect from code you're writing to format your Excel cells.

  function mergeAndHideGridlines() {
      getRange("H15:I16").merge();
      activeWindow.displayGridlines = false;
  }

Sure I can picture someone pasting in code from his/her JS library to reuse in a macro, but I don't foresee people commonly doing the other way and having issues because the Excel function that they worked on for several days doesn't work for webpages.

Right, they are talking about exposing the existing Office API to Javascript. Not having Office generate Javascript or some abomination.

Note that: - Microsoft Office is often as part of huge corporate application monstrosities.

-Open Office has some limited support for VBA.

Sounds good if it works. Writing plugins, or automating Office through COM is an exercise in frustration right now. I've had to automate office to do some ridiculous stuff with word docs by invoking the COM objects half a dozen times now, and each time I do it pushes me one step closer to learning rails.

Is there any reason you aren't using Open XML rather then COM? http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5124

For files <100MB I found it much nicer to use then interop.

Need to support legacy files. The last (and biggest) was to import word docs into a commercial typesetting system. We need to keep the barriers for our clients as low as possible so couldn't require they give us .docx.

If that reduces vendor lock-in, I'm for it. But knowing Microsoft since the Altair BASIC days, I have to wonder what they are trying to accomplish.

Why would anyone think this is to avoid lock-in? If you're writing something to manipulate the Word document model using the Word API, it's unlikely you're going to be able to retarget that code to some other system. Just like if you use the Java libraries, it doesn't matter if the language is portable - you're still going to need Java to run the code against.

What they are trying to accomplish is simple: Keep more people using Office. JavaScript and HTML seem to be gaining more traction, so it makes perfect sense Microsoft would want their products accessible for such developers. What other reason would there be?

This is obviously not to avoid lock-in. This is Microsoft, remember?

But, if JavaScript becomes the de facto extension language for Office, at least we have a smaller problem to deal with than with VBScript.

Why does Office need to be quite so complicated? It it purely to sell upgrades or are there people out there who look forward to this stuff?

You would not believe what some of my co-workers have achieved in Excel and VBA. Complete scheduling systems that tie in to three databases, complicated code that analyzes metal removal. And they don't consider themselves programmers.

The lack of programming knowledge mixed with VBA makes for an maintainability nightmare, but hell, they're doing a good job of Getting Things Done. I would love for Microsoft to replace VBA with a language that these people can still use, but is easier for a programmer to take over once the scope increases past the abilities of Excel. I'm not sure if javascript is that language (I think a C# derivative would be better), but it might be.

There are lots of business uses to being able to automate documents. Being able to do so in JS rather than VBA would be a bonus for companies that have a need to do so, but don't want to train people in a language that's not used anywhere else.

It might also allow MS to do nifty online things.

Agreed. Having used VBA in Access back in the day, I can attest that JS would be a godsend.

I guess my giant question is why didn't they make a C#-like scripting language first?

I'm looking forward to this. I've needed to embed a web app into outlook, and writing an outlook add-on to do that was an exercise in frustration. Not sure how much javascript can solve that, but I doubt it will make things worse.

What else should they be doing besides improving the product?

Office has millions of users. On one of the Office developers blogs, there was a mention of the accusations of "bloat". His response was something like "Do people think we just add code to Office for the sake of adding code? Features are added in response to customer demands."

Sure, not every release will have compelling additions for every user, and it's possible your goals are filled by an earlier version. The last two versions (2007 and 2010) have made it vastly more usable.

Because it's a sharepoint platform!

I like this idea. One of my first "hacks" in the workplace was using VBA to make an Excel worksheet automate some processes my co-workers hated. Incorporating JavaScript and HTML 5 means more programmers can make coworkers happy with less investment in programming infrastructure and not being able to use those skills elsewhere outside of spreadsheets.

I remember older versions of Office making HTML; two pages of some cryptic stuff after exporting Hello World doc...

I wonder if it's going to be HTML5/Javascript or H5++/Microsoft JS# Professional...

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