Hahahahahaha. Oh yes... this is classic stuff. This deserves a blog post from me. But for now, let's have fun with this:

"But those product managers aren't the poor bastards faced with rewriting millions of lines of source code to reinvent crucial applications, nor do the Microsofties have to swallow hard while they lose dependable business logic refined over decades."

VB1 came out in 1991, one decade prior to VB.NET, so "decades" is an exaggeration. And besides, if VB was really that kick-ass, why do they need a new version at all?

Good times.

They need a new version of VB because COM sucks. That is why they created VB.Net.

Don

"VB1 came out in 1991, one decade prior to VB.NET, so "decades" is an exaggeration."

Maybe not, VB maintained source code compatability with QuickBASIC. QuickBASIC retained source code compatbility with earlier Microsoft BASIC's, dating back to Altair 8800 Basic in 1975 ( http://weblogs.asp.net/ericlippert/archive/2004/09/09/227461.aspx ). So yes, it's very possible to say that business logic has been seemlessly migrated forward for decades. Even if it's not, one decade is enough: 1 person working for 10 years on a code base is about $1M worth of labor (and that's a __very__ small project). If I had spent $1M on something and was told that I either had to rewrite it or figure out how to get it to interop with a new runtime, I think I'd be pretty ticked off too.

"And besides, if VB was really that kick-ass, why do they need a new version at all? "

Sure, since as the platform evolves the new features will only be available on new versions of the development enviornment. If you want to take advantage of those, you have to figure out some way to get to .Net.

The thing that's amazing about this situation to me is that Microsoft is the tool vendor. If anything, they should be grateful that folks are chosing their tools. And here they are, obsoleting billions of dollars of investment because they want some new features in a language called BASIC.

VB Petition

Smart Ass...Little Buddy

i dont even know what to say now. but is microsoft going to drop support for vb6