The real benefit to the customer and to the owner of the code with .NET is that in 5-10 years the .NET code will very likely be very viable on whatever the current version of Microsoft's desktop/server OS exists at the time, I have extensive Y2003 C# code that is essentially unmaintainable because it is pre-typed dataset and everybody who encounters it wants to rewrite. and now senior MS execs are quoted saying development will be completely different in 5 years. I'm wondering what they're comparing to. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
