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.