VB is dead?

With the recent arrival of Microsoft's .Net initiative and a preview of .Visual Studio it becomes increasingly apparent that the choice of programming language becomes less important and the choice of technologies to interface with i.e. SOAP, XML, HTTP becomes more so.

What if I'm happy with VB6?

From my initial wanderings with Visual Studio VB has become more Java like, developing inheritance and becoming a lot more object oriented. Couple this with .Nets object oriented environment and we see why it is recommended that many VB applications will require a rewrite to run on .Net. We also see that many developers will require "a rewrite rather than a mere upgrade". It is not often that wetware becomes obsolete but there is a danger that procedural VB skills will go the way of COBOL, supporting legacy applications only. However, if VB is getting more Java like, and C# is essentially another version of Java, why bother learning the new bits of VB when you can learn C# and dump all of VB's legacy baggage? A question I find myself asking and to which I don't have a convincing answer.

I'm not sure on this one. I can see it taking some time before companies jump on the .NET bandwagon and Microsoft wants them to jump, so I guess it is inevitable. Once new systems are being developed for a .NET environment they will be following an object-oriented approach. Since the changes between procedural and object programming are quite large, at least in the design, there may be a revolt from the rank and file programmers. Will Microsoft listen? I doubt it. Now may be the time to attend that Java course, reread that book on programming objects in VB6 or simply start to learn C#.