VBscript vs Python (was Re: [5th Draft] Open Letter to CNRI: Request for clarification)

[Alex Martelli]

"Thomas Weholt" <thomas at cintra.no> wrote in message
news:398afe08.441021335 at news.online.no...
> Any hints, urls or material that could back this up would be highly
> appreciated.

where "this" is presumably my remarks that

> >Take care!!!  Microsoft has announced, buried somewhere in the folds of
> >the many .NET things, that VBscript will shortly *DISAPPEAR*.  I'm sure
    [snip]
> >new version, JScript.NET, will be a compiled language, part of Visual
> >Studio .NET, and so, again, most likely a for-$$$ thingy.  Just look at
the

OK, I looked it up -- see the URL:
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/voices/scripting07142000.asp

The relevant quotes are, on VBScript getting re-absorbed into VB:

"we could either re-implement Visual Basic ourselves, or work with the
Visual Basic team to make Visual Basic a script engine. We chose the latter"

while the rest of the article is all about JScript.NET and its umpteen
"cool new features", which here I'm boiling down to:

"JScript code will produce essentially the same compiled code as
Visual Basic.NET, C#, or any other .NET language ... JScript.NET
allows you to compile your script into an EXE or a DLL"

and

"just as you can in the other Visual Studio.Net languages" (implying
the JScript.NET language is part of Visual Studio .NET, the product,
not just of "the .NET framework" as mentioned in other places).


Of course, it's quite possible that Microsoft may still decide to give
away Visual Basic .NET, JScript .NET, and/or any other part or
parcel of Visual Studio .NET, for free; the "most likely for $$$" is
my own strictly-personal evaluation of the situation, but if MS could
afford to give away IE for free to break Netscape, they can afford
to give away VS.NET just-as-for-free to break Borland or Sun or
whomever they think they want to break:-).

However, I wouldn't bank my money on such chances, if I had to
choose what scripting language[s] to redistribute to my end-users
as a part of a commercial application.  After all, Microsoft makes
bundles of money (by normal firms' standard -- no doubt, peanuts
to THEM, but still...) licensing VBA (at very onerous rates) to the
developers of both commercial and in-house applications; why,
unless a horrid strategic threat appears, should they cut their own
throat by allowing free redistribution to end-users of the much more
powerful Visual Basic .NET, JScript .NET, and/or the rest of
Visual Studio .NET...?


Alex