.Net cleans up the gigantic mess
Without
a doubt, .NET is one of the great simplifying tools in the world of
software. It goes a long way towards cleaning up a gigantic mess.
That's actually not such a great achievement when you realize it's
Microsoft that created this mess by building badly designed software
year after year, refusing to do any thinking and planning, going at it
straight from a programming point of view. And they knew. [Why
We Don't Build Software for Users, interview with father of Visual
Basic Alan Cooper]
I know that is a month old article, but I just found it. I don't normally read Visual Studio Magazine. Mr. Cooper also makes some interesting points about the engineering approach to software development, exemplified by UML, and the craft approach, exemplified by XP.