Not a problem if the Pilot knows that he's ignorant. But how many people like to admit that they are? Especially with 'toy' languages like VB which "can't possibly be used reliably for enterprise-scale applications" (I paraphrase badly; apologies, but that's the sense).

I have a deep ignorance of Smalltalk, but my customers (using my applications enterprise wide, 24/7, mission-critical etc) don't mind that because I don't try to use it. I guess that they just imagine that my VB apps work. -- SimonSmith (who really is feeling testy, sorry!)

No need to apologize Simon. Or, at least, apology accepted from this quarter. We're all to well aware of our AntiMicrosoftBiasOnWiki. I've found VB to be a very painful language to use, but it's often the best tool for the job. It's also supposed to be getting much better real soon now (if you believe what you hear from Microsoft). -- PhilGoodwin

Thank you, Phil. I think that one of the points I was trying, rather hamfistedly, to make was that VB in fact doesn't actually need to become 'much better'; it's pretty good already. Personally, I find C++ extremely painful to develop in but that's my problem not C++'s.
However, VB 7 does sound very interesting. Indeed, the implications of some of the announcements that they've made for the whole of the Visual Studio range sound intriguing.
Incidentally, the VbUnit available at RonJeffries site can test any and all (compiled) COM objects (black box) regardless of language.   SimonSmith