Microsoft still supports Visual Basic

I recently received some email critical of my claim that Microsoft no longer supports or provides Visual Basic. I suppose this is a fair point. They do after all still sell a product called Visual Basic.

So what gives? An awful lot of people dont think that the new Visual Basic .Net product is Visual Basic at all. Its more of a version of C# (a Java clone, more or less) with some BASIC syntax thrown on top. Its not hard to use Google to find many articles of people who agree with this sentiment.

Here are some examples that I found in just minute:

http://www.sqlmag.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=21050&

And from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET#Comparative_samples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET#Controversy_concerning_VB.NET

If theres any dishonesty here, I claim that its on Microsofts part. For years people complained that Visual Basic isnt BASIC. Now people are complaining that VB.Net isnt Visual Basic. Where does it end? ;-)