Richard Grimes, a very recognized author and speaker on.NET topics, addresses what he considers as some missteps in the development of.NET and offers words of warning about the future of the platform.
I have to say that some of his predictions, while certainly not what I would like to hear, seem to be pretty feasible given the course Microsoft has taken these last few years. I also tend to agree that Microsoft has done a poor job of providing a strong reason for VB.NET to exist beyond as a means to try and make the jump to.NET for VB developers less painful. I’ve believed for years that a VB6 developer would be less confused to jump to.NET using C# than to try and remember all the differences between VB and VB.NET (which looks like VB, but isn’t), as I described in an article several years ago, Why I Chose C#. At any rate, this is certainly an interesting read.