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I did some VB programming in the mid 1990's, looked at vb.net shortly after it came out and discovered that much of what made VB "good" had been lost. The easy

I did some VB programming in the mid 1990's, looked at vb.net shortly after it came out and discovered that much of what made VB "good" had been lost. The easy learning curve, and the ability to create useful things in timeframes measured in a couple hours or less all seemed to be replaced with the traditional programming tool paradigms. The lack of a reasonable porting tool and the fact that it didn't really have any advantages over C# in .net land, it made sense for most people to jump to C# instead of VB.net. MS had to know this was going to happen. They left the door open for someone to actually create something to fill the VB niche, but all the focus on web technologies has meant that nothing really stepped up.

tabtab 7y ago
Re: "left the door open for someone to actually create something to fill the VB niche, but all the focus on web technologies has meant that nothing really stepped up." Indeed! Desktop tools largely got ignored and everybody went web. But web development is a royal pain in the butt. Apps that a single developer/analyst could produce in a couple of months now require teams of specialists (UI, middle, DB, etc.) and bloated stacks. Productivity died. Yes, deployment is simpler with web, but the desktop tools had been improving in that area. Something died. (Under ideal circumstances, a well-run web shop can be productive, but it takes too many things to go right. Most orgs are wobbly.)