In theory, I say to hell with VB.NET.  I grew up with it, after VB6, but after learning the other .NET languages, I simply don’t see any practical reason to use it.  It’s harder to write, harder to read, and it allows far too many errors to slip through the cracks.  But in practice, it’s easy to see why phasing it out isn’t really a practical option for Microsoft.

As for the eternal VB.NET vs C# argument… well, let’s just say that there’s something to be said for readability.

private ObservableCollection _values = new ObservableCollection();
private ReadOnlyObservableCollection _wrappedValues;
public Foo()
{
_wrappedValues = new ReadOnlyObservableCollection(_values);
}

vs

Private _values as new ObservableCollection(Of String)
Private _wrappedValues as new ReadOnlyObservableCollection(Of String)(_values)

The VB.NET version instantiates _wrappedValues spaghetti style, in a way that is not blatantly obvious to anyone glancing at the class.  It is essentially an invisible GOTO statement, in a magically invisible constructor, which references class variables that may or may not be changed later on.  That means that, come debugging time, you have absolutely no choice but to look through each and every variable declaration to see if pulling execution away from -the actual constructor(s)-.

In the C# version, if you want to know what happens to an instance variable, you follow the flow of code.  I.e. you’re not chasing phantom GOTO statements, to say nothing of VB.NET’s piss-poor type safety.

That brings me to my next point… the easy to learn argument.  No, VB.NET is not easy to learn.  It’s easy to muddle through, leaving in its wake programmers who think they know what they are doing, when really all they know how to do is write code that doesn’t cause compiler errors.  In VB, that doesn’t say much, because VB will usually compile no matter how crappy and/or disorganized your program is.  VB -is- more approachable, because it uses a lot more words and doesn’t throw a fit when you introduce bugs.

This is coming from a 6-year VB6 developer who resisted the change to .NET, and then resisted the trend toward C# for another 2-3 years.  After learning C# and F#, I’ll never look back.  I cringe every time I have to work with BASIC in any form.  But I was in your camp for a long, long time, Jonathan.

VB.NET doesn’t affect me, other than the opportunity cost at MS for feature parity with the languages. Of the languages you listed, only C# and VB.NET are alike. The others are radically different. Why invest so much in two languages that are so similar? What a waste.

And it results in pretty crappy performance.