REAL Software Offers Free Upgrade to Stranded VB Users

Executable code can be DISASSEMBLED, not decompiled, the difference? One produces assembly code, the other, something very similar to the original source, except minus the comments on what it does. In a machine code executable, you could convert the assembly back into C code but the function names would be meaningless (numerical designations) and the converter would be confused by inline assembly. A skilled Assembly programmer would be able to understand some of it, but a 500 line C++ program can potentially disassemble into a 10,000+ line assembly program.

The simple fact being it may take days for some one to unravel an obfuscated .Net program but it may takes weeks, months or even years to unravel a machine code program.

Come on, even executable code can be decompiled. Use an obfuscator to thwart casual hacking. Real hackers will decompile alomost anything they like, so not much is safe out there. Best I've heard of is encrypted code running in a VM with protected memory, etc. Thinstall for instance.

I must say the RealBasic product seems to be quite impressive, even though it can't create OCX controls. If Office starts using VBA.NET I'll stop programming in Access and move to RealBasic. I thought of moving to Delphi a while ago but it was too expensive, and different from VBA. I'm getting too old to learn a new language from scratch and pay the bills at the same time.

I think the post about Microsoft ignoring the people who made corporations take it seriously is spot on. And the .NET framework is seriously flawed: I doubt very much whether Longhorn or the next version of Office will rely on it, after all who wants to write code that you know can be decompiled?

This is not an issue of support or not.
The whole issue is that Microsoft has changed their way of reaching the market. We (the VB/VBA-people) helped them and opened the doors to get into the large accounts. Now they are there and they don't need us anymore. It's as simple as that.
The people they meet today (their new customers) at the IT-apartments at the large accounts (CIO:s etc) haven't got a clue about all the stuff used out in the apartments. And if they have seen anything they dislikes it and hopes it will die as soon as possible, that is what Microsoft is trying to help them to achieve. As always we are in the battle of if IT should be implemented top-down or bottom-up. And the sad story is that Microsoft has changed position the last years.
I have always been the bottom-up guy who believed in the power and the engagement at the apartments where people work and find smarter ways of using computers. The top-down represented by IBM, Oracle etc and now also Microsoft has always been madness to me. Lots of wasted money trying to implement systems invented at HQ meetings by guys drawing silly schemas with boxes and arrows using three digit words who nobody understands. No it’s simply a question of dictatorship or democracy. It is not just Microsoft moving in that direction I think the whole nation, United States of America is going there…

and 30 year old COBOL programs continue to hold up major banking operations, and are still supported by IBM, et al.
If Microshaft want's to be taken seriously as a business solutions provider, it had better start reavaluating it's product lifecycles. business is not the same as the home games market