I agree, but my point is that Microsoft doesn't necessarily take the size of
the user base into account when they "innovate." Look at 16 bit to 32 bit,
Visual Basic 6, the removal of While ,Wend (granted, they never actually took
that one out), the Sun suit over modifications to the Java standard, the
modifications to C++ syntax, non-compliance with JSR 168, etc, etc.
Granted, this doesn't necessary have anything to do with whether they will
remove support for ASP - it is, after all, a static code base that they just
need to leave in there. My point is that I do not have much confidence in
Microsoft's commitment to backward compatibility, particularly when they have
not been as successfull as they had hoped in garnering support for .NET.
You are absolutely right about the support lifecycle pertaining specifically
to products - not features of products. I am just hoping to find some
official commitment from them about whether they will either sustain or dump
ASP. My company has miles and miles of the stuff all over our web site.
This isn't necessarily a huge issue since I have at least two to three years
of guaranteed, mainstream support left.
"Aaron Bertrand [SQL Server MVP]" wrote:
but let's not forget that Visual Basic 6.0 is a dead product - regardless
of
how many people are still using it.
But this is all about whether to use it or not; what other definition is
there? If I have Visual Basic 6.0 installed on my system, do I care about
anything external to my environment if I need to whip up a simple app or
dll? Microsoft's support lifecycle certainly isn't going to prevent me from
doing it.
Anyway, can anyone point me to any official Microsoft documentation that
outlines the lifecycle for ASP or a good roadmap for IIS? I tried
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/, but it is not there since
ASP
is not technically a product.
I don't think you're going to find a timeline for ASP specifically. ASP is
part of IIS, and IIS is a component of the operating system, so the
lifecycle of a specific operating system (e.g. Windows XP) dictates the
lifecycle of the version of ASP that shipped with it (e.g. IIS 5.1 / ASP
3.0).