I know, this is not new as the announcement is dated January 10, 2007. But I noticed it only some time ago and forgot to blog about it. The news is that Microsoft is removing J# support from Visual Studio. But instead of saying "killing", "removing", "terminating"... they say they are "retiring it". Also, they claim this is because users don't need any new features. I find this very amusing:
Retirement of J# language from future versions of Visual Studio
Since customers have told us that the existing J# feature set largely meets their needs and usage
of J# is declining, Microsoft is retiring the Visual J# product to better allocate resources for other
customer requirements.
Guess what? CodeGear could tell us that the existing Kylix features set largely meets our needs, so they are retiring it... CodeGear might learn from this style, but I'm pretty sure a similar announcement from them would trigger rage in the non-tech newsgroup.
Another interesting element is that Microsoft pushed J# as a way to "convert" big telecoms and financial institutions from Java to .NET. Killing J# looks like another sign that this never happened and .NET is not making big inroads in similar companies. Too bad that the Together support in Delphi is based on J#, which is hey you need to install it among the prerequisites. Anyway, Microsoft promises 8 more years of support, so that will keep working for some more time.