Come on! You didn’t see Fox developers getting all upset when MS bundled and then un-bundled their favorite product…oops! I’m sorry, yes you did.
Rich Levin has it right when he says:
There’s no reason, technical or otherwise, why Visual Basic 6 can’t coexist with Visual Basic .NET, just as Microsoft Visual FoxPro coexists with Access, just as Microsoft Visual C++ coexists with Visual C#, and just as Microsoft’s Macintosh division coexists with the company’s overarching Windows focus.
But the reality is – retaining VB 6 would be like MS keeping FoxPro updated. Should they do it? Yes – but at what cost? Do they keep VB /DOS around? No.
The price of progress? Yes – BUT maybe MS should realize that not every developer has the same resources that theirs have.
Personally – I think VB.net is far superior to VB – but that hasn’t stopped many VB devs from looking at other areas.
Time will tell….