Any recommendations for a language that I can compile into unreadable code?

[The Bear named Joe]

I would like your opinion please. I am a developer from the IBM AS400 days. I like vba. But the code for it is viewable and can of course be modified. Most books on VBA claim it is compiled. From my perspective it is not. I say this because the instructions in VBA are open source code. Since VBA does not compile into object code (at least in a way that I am familiar with) is there another language on the PC platform that is similar to COBOL, FORTRAN, RPG etc. and the compiled object code could be portable to another computer while retaining the source code on the development machine? Thanks in advance for your advice. I am hoping for a language that is similar and with a moderate learning curve. Regards...

 

[jmacleary]

Hi there. I am a developer from IBM system/360 Assembler/COBOL days! There are a few VBA compilers out there but they're not free, I saw this one for instance which can create a dll: 10 Steps to compile VBA code to DLL - VbaCompiler for Excel - also Unviewable+ VBA for Excel PowerPoint Word AutoCAD Visio Please note I have no experience of either of these, but the second one claims to be endorsed by MrExcel.

One option depending on what you are trying to develop might be to use Access. Develop the VBA code you want, then you can create a runtime version which is compiled.

 

[RoryA]

You could look at VB. It is similar-ish to VBA, albeit much more object-oriented. C# is a more popular option, with probably more support available, but would have a slightly steeper initial learning curve. Depending on what you are doing, if you could find a copy of VB6 that would be very similar to VBA (which is basically a subset of VB6) and compiles into executables.

 

[The Bear named Joe]

Thanks very much for your replies and suggestions. I appreciate your replies. Regards.