To .Net or Not To .Net - That is the Question

While Microsoft continues on its warpath to a complete .Net strategy transformation with its upcoming Visual Studio .Net, many developers are not going quietly into the night and raging against the softwares progress. Not even in its second beta release, which is scheduled for this spring, VS.Net seems to be lacking its promised killer abilities thus far.

While it might not be fair to judge the software based on its first beta, many developers are doing just that, according to the News.com report.

Mainly the testers are concerned with the differences between the two, Visual Studio 6, and the revamped Visual Studio .Net. VS.Net includes the Microsoft .Net framework, as well as updates to Visual Basic, C++, and the much acclaimed C# so that developers can use, and reuse Web services.

The problem, developers say, is that because the two are so different, upgrading may be more difficult than originally expected. And others are saying that Microsoft shouldn't even attach the same name to the two pieces of software because the resemblance is miniscule.

One developer, Daniel Barclay, told News.com VB.Net, unlike other versions of VB, does not use the language syntax and behavior of MS Basic. The new language looks familiar, but it is not the same." He also added "This is a stupid move by Microsoft that will, in my opinion, hurt the deployment of (Microsoft.Net), as well as their position with developers."

Microsoft says it has changed some things to make them more similar, and told News.com reporters that the syntactical changes are minor and manageable. The company also plans to give developers an "upgrade wizard" to check old code for problems before upgrading to .Net standards.

Check the News.com story for the rest of the article.