I disagree with the author. Backwards compatibility is one of the great things about Microsoft's stuff, not a bad thing. In 6+ years at Loopt, an upgrade (to

I disagree with the author. Backwards compatibility is one of the great things about Microsoft's stuff, not a bad thing. In 6+ years at Loopt, an upgrade (to get new shiny features) never meant we had to stop using older code. SQL 2012 is nearly completely[1] compatible with SQL 2005, and largely compatible with SQL 2000. IIS 7.5 will still run ASP code in VB from the early 2000s, and that code can live alongside ASP.net 1.1-4, or ASP.net MVC 1-3. In many cases, you can even have hybrid ASP/ASP.net/MVC combined applications. There are often benefits that make revisiting your old code worthwhile, but rarely are you forced to. And we kept getting security updates back-ported the whole time. [1] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143179(v=sql.110).aspx [2] http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/727/classic-asp-applications-on-iis-overview/