More comments on Tom Yager’s article

Simon Cooke posted a comment on my last post on Tom Yager's Visual Studio .NET 2005 Preview article asking me which parts I disagree with.


Well, lets see.


"Microsoft has let its developers down".


Even if you don't use .NET, Visual Studio .NET 2003 is still an excellent C++ development environment.  Hardly letting us down.


All the supposed broken promises - how about some links to those promises?  I don't remember Microsoft making most most of them.


He mentions "Major changes that seemed arbitrary" but doesn't say what they are.


"Microsoft is mounting a two-pronged offensive to win back its enterprise development credentials".  Did Microsoft ever have enterprise development credentials?  When exactly did they lose them?  As far as I can see, Microsoft has been slowly building it's enterprise development credibility over the years (starting with almost none), and it's only accelerated lately. 


"Visual Basic 2005 abridges .Net’s pedantic grammar to accommodate inexperienced and impatient developers."  Pedantic grammar?  The only relevant links on a Google search for pedantic grammar "visual basic" are links to his article.


He says "VS .Net derailed Visual C++" but I build C++ applications with VS.NET for a living and I'm quite happy with it.  When you 'derail' something does that mean to continue to support and improve it?


It's like he's created this alternate universe where Microsoft has been ignoring and alienating developers in which to set his story, and that's not the universe that I see at all.