My wife's been a devotee of Visual Basic for some time now, and has urged me to give it a spin...so I did.

It ain't no Ferrarri, that's for sure, but it runs nice and you can let go of the steering wheel for hours at a time and it stays on the road.

The learning curve is...well, linear. Horizontal. Perhaps even inclined a little downhill.

What really attracts me is the absolutely complete immersion in Windows...VB eats, drinks, sleeps and dreams Win32. If you can find it in yourself to ignore all other platforms and OSs (and beleive me, I can), VB starts to become really comfy really fast.

Sigh. Java's been really good to me, and will always have a special place in my heart. I'll recall it fondly long after it's dead...which could be any old day now, injunctions notwithstanding.

VB on the other hand, is backed by The Corp, and as such has a long, wealthy life ahead of it.

Things are just easier if you dance with the one calling the tunes, don't you think?