My previous understanding of .NET, Visual Basic .NET, and Windows Forms was that Microsoft had, to some, betrayed what made “classic” Visual Basic (through version 6) so great. And that the new environment was so complicated that it alienated the enthusiasts and non-professional developers who had so loved previous versions of the product.

Looking at VB.NET and Windows Forms today, however, I see nothing like that. VB.NET is more modern and professional, as a language, than was its predecessors, yes. But I don’t understand the complaints at all and feel that VB/Windows Forms was—and still is—the logical successor to classic VB. This is a fantastic environment for creating classic Windows applications, and the only thing holding it back in that regard is that Microsoft stopped updating it to support new user experiences and user interface controls. (Witness the issues I had with Task Dialogs and Find/Replace dialogs in .NETpad as an obvious example.)