"...really depended on VBA's (Excel) IDE... "

Maybe take a look at Iron Python aka Python for .NET so you could use the Visual Studio IDE - still the best in the business IMO.

I used C a lot in the ancient past and later Delphi, now VB+Win32. Since I only program for myself now that's it as long as there's a VM if needed to run it :-) If I take up anything else, it might be something off the wall like Lua.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken