Reality checks are such fun.

When pundits and vendors with vested interests trumpet a new technology, they often announce that "everyone" is switching to it. It's always interesting to hear that little voice that asks, "Who's everyone?" When we were kids, it was Mom, inserting the voice of reason when we wanted to do something a bit off-kilter. (You: "But Mom, everyone is getting tattoos this year!" Mom: "You're not everyone!")

So, is "everyone" switching to Visual Basic .NET? Developer tool vendor Novalys decided to find out.

Last July, the company mounted a survey on its Web site, www.visual-expert.com, asking 11 questions about development activities. They got responses from 2,600 people in 100 countries, 44% of whom were from the United States.

The results may surprise you. Mom was right: "everyone" isn't using Visual Basic .NET. Yet. In fact, 78% of respondents still use VB 6, and only 19 percent have switched to VB .NET. The remaining few percentage points are held, believe it or not, by VB 5!

Shops of all sizes contributed to these results, though the sample was overwhelmingly weighted in favor of small teams. Almost half (48%) have VB teams of one or two developers, while only 8% had teams of 20 developers or more.

When asked when they were planning to migrate to .NET, one third of VB 5 or VB 6 developers said they would do so in the next two years, 42% didn't know, and 12% didn't waffle: they said "Never." The final 13 percent plan to migrate, but not in the next two years.

When asked for the benefits they see in a migration, 17% of the developers said "None"! The rest named the .NET Framework (25%), Web services (18%), ASP .NET (17%), and 14% just like to get their hands on a new development language.

This crew really does like its Visual Basic, though. On a scale from 0 to 10, respondents were asked to rate VB as a programming language; 68% rated it 8 or higher (it got a perfect 10 from 14%). Sixteen percent gave it a 7, and 16 percent rated it 5 or less.

Microsoft's VB support was greeted with somewhat less enthusiasm, with only 45% granting it a rating of 7 or higher, 30% allowing a middling grade of 5 or 6, and 19% turning thumbs-down with ratings of 4 or less.

.NET functionality — or lack thereof — was another complaint. Components and tools available in VB 6 were missing from VB .NET, claimed the developers. (Microsoft has taken so much flak over some of the debugger omissions that the features have found their way back into the next version of Visual Studio, Whidbey).

Respondents also cited cost, and the learning curve, as reasons to stick with the tried-and-true. It's just not worth the time and effort to migrate some projects. Some companies maintain the old code for the life of the product, but do their new development in .NET.

Admittedly, some of these results are skewed because of questionnaire design. For example, many respondents commented that they use both VB 6 and VB .NET, but that the language choice question only permitted one answer. Others plan to move away from VB entirely, migrating to C#, C++, or open source languages, and the questionnaire didn't allow for that, either. Novalys lists all of the respondent comments (in their original languages) on the survey result Web page, and they're interesting reading. You'll find the entire set of results here.

More Visual Basic articles at DevSource:

• Leaving VB6 Behind: You're an experienced Visual Basic programmer. You're considering migrating to Visual Basic .NET. Or should you switch to C#? Here's a good place to start, to get your head screwed on straight.
• Using Class Events in VB.Net: Class Events are different from discrete user events, such as mouse clicks. Learn what these powerful class events are all about, and how you can put them to use in your own applications.
• A Roll of the Dice: Learn the basics of Windows graphics programming as you build a lightweight game. Between the use of software patterns and the graphics techniques, you'll polish your fundamental programming skills while having a bit of fun.