VBA also sucks a lot of people into programming proper. A few years ago I started by recording macros and then reading the code they generated, then writing my own code. I learned what a database was by making a sales lead tracker in Access.
Fast forward to today and I am writing scripts and building apps in ruby, python, JS, Java, Clojure and Haskell.
Same experience here, although it was 15 years ago! (And I made my lead tracker in Excel itself -- didn't move on to Access until the next project.) I still hold on to the first VBA for Excel programming book I got back then, purely for the nostalgia. Fun times!
Isn't it incredible that VBA is still around (and probably unchanged since the late 90's). Bummer that MS has let Access stagnate for the past decade.
Fast forward to today and I am writing scripts and building apps in ruby, python, JS, Java, Clojure and Haskell.