Dim a : VB Is Not a TypeOf Misanthropy
After copping a bit of a bollocking at the hands of the masses the other day, Paul Vick has thrown out some reasonably insightful diatribe regarding proposed code re-writing functionality which is slated for inclusion in an already feature rich IDE.
In it he mentions the overwhelming number of responses received from the community for his recent "Refactoring" entry; I don't think that it's really that remarkable. As the world of blogging surges towards saturation point, words from those in positions of influence will increasingly be turned to (and turned upon) for low-level scrutiny. The chaos and commentary which ensued is an inevitable reaction that will occur when language designers talk about languages, or salespeople talk about sales, or motivators talk about motivation, or lazy Australians talk about.... ahhh nevermind! The thing is, the level of interest proved that people found it interesting and I'm sure that it made everyone question their "belief" in that understanding and position towards that topic.
I think that, if I were in a position to influence the focus of the VB Team I say this: forget that code re-writing stuff, let the C# guys sweat the details of that. Let's continue to focus on the next wave, but, as an aside, keep selling ways to use the language to build useful applications - that's where the real added value in VB is *and* was.
One thing that Paul said that I took note of was:
That’s because they don’t necessarily have the time or the extra available energy to spend exploring the nuances of Visual Studio, not because they are too stupid to figure it out...
Keep swingin' Paul - we're still miles ahead in designer experience! ;-)