Hi,
I'm Rob Ashton, a software developer based in Reading, UK. I'm the technical lead of .NET development at the company I work for.
While I download Team Foundation Explorer so I can commence development on ConnectBasic development, I thought I'd start off by explaining why I feel that it's worth working on this software in my spare time.
I have been exposed to VBA throughout my software development career and while never having had to deal with it directly I have long recognised its importance in providing academics, engineers and suchlike with easy access to the ability to automate the software they work in daily in order to be able to spend the rest of their time more productively.
It is true that the move towards "proper" project based programming marks a move away from the easy accessability of macro programming and is in essence a disservice to the customer - but to go into this would just lead to repeating what is already written and available on the codeplex page.
This is not my primary motivation however, and that is simply that I enjoy working with languages as a technology, and the idea of creating an experience that is akin (and indeed even better) to that which VBA developers have long enjoyed on the Windows platform excites me beyond anything.
Not only that, but creating something that is cross platform and that will ensure the future of macro programming in times to come feels like a truely worthwhile project. Especially if developers decide to utilise ConnectBasic in the projects they have responsibility over as their way of easily providing application extensibility to their ordinary users.
Anyway, enough blathering for now, the TFS client has downloaded and now demands to be installed - I look forward to blogging on my ongoing progress in this project as times goes on.
