[vox] [fwd] Converting Educational Software from MS Office to OpenOffice.]

[Bill Kendrick]

Heh, interesting.  I didn't know Micrsoft is no longer supporting
("mainstream") Visual Basic after next week.  Apparently, tons of
VB developers are pretty pissed, too.

-bill!

----- Forwarded message from Knut Yrvin -----

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 04:27:18 +0100
From: Knut Yrvin
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Converting Educational Software from MS Office to
 OpenOffice.

mandag 28 mars 2005, 00:27, skrev Sweet Coffee:

> He indicated he would work with folks who could convert the 
> present code to work with OO. It is my understanding that although 
> OO does not support Visual Basic, 

Microsoft don't support Visual Basic either. The Mainstream phase will 
be in effect for six years after the product's general availability 
date. Visual Basic 6.0 was generally available in January 1999. 
Mainstream support will end March 31, 2005.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/support/vb6.aspx
http://visualbasic.about.com/od/imhoinmyhumbleopinion/a/VB6Petition.htm
http://www.builderau.com.au/program/work/0,39024650,39180842,00.htm

> Can educational programs be written for OO in VB or VBA? There is an
> offer to do so.

The question has to be reformulated. Since OpenOffice offer an extensive 
integration through different programming API's (Application Program 
Interface), there are no big task to program the desired application in 
an standard programing language. That should be done in one of the 
mainstream supported and maintained API's that are in OpenOffice. 
Microsoft VB (Visual Basic) and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) are 
not one of these API's in OpenOffice. 

Visual Basic is known for it's security deficiencies, and is fairly 
outdated because it's limited support for programming server client 
applications with Internet technology. The replacement from Microsoft 
is C# that is a Java clone. 

So the answer is to reprogram the program in one of the standard 
languages that are offered. The shortest way is probably to go for the 
built in StarOffice Basic. There are only minor differences between MS 
VBA and SO Basic. Then the programmer don't need to recode the 
application in a object-oriented manner, that could be an technically 
more beneficial.

> I am sure more help would be appreciated, so I am also asking those
> in the SchoolFordge community to help out, if they can.  

I you should have any luck get someone to help you, it's smart to ask 
for help amongst the programing languages that are most popular, and 
are free software. There are much more people that are fluent in C, 
C++, Java, PHP and Perl compared to the two main programing languages 
from Microsoft where one of them are not supported. 

http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm
http://www.dedasys.com/articles/language_popularity.html

How Microsoft Lost the API War:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

- Knut Yrvin


----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com         "I'm anticipating an all-out tactical
http://newbreedsoftware.com/      dog-fight, followed by a light dinner."