The CSLA is a framework that has had very good acceptance in the enterprise for the creation of Line Of Business (LOB) applications. It started as a VB6 framework, evolved to VB.NET and C# and is now on the brink of becoming C# only. Maybe it is a bit too early to say that the LOB language of choice is tracing the same path but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it did.
Rockford Lhotka, author and maintainer of the CSLA framework, announced he is dropping the development of the VB.NET version of the CSLA and the corresponding book. After reading the post I expected an onslaught of insults, recriminations and threats to drop the framework to invade the blog comments and the forum. It was going to be another C# vs. VB bashing with Rocky in the middle. But no, to my utter surprise not a single poster was out of order. All the VB.NET developers said they understood the problem and supported the decision with varying degrees of regret, and not a single C# developer was brash enough to offend the previous group. I mean it got to the point of someone posting a mock rant! These days when so many OSS projects are fracturing because of incomprehensible minor details, this is a good example of how a community can support revolutionary changes in a project without breaking apart. Maybe the difference is on the sense of leadership that Rocky inspires on his users or maybe it is because the CSLA user base knows all too well the pain of duplicate work that pervades today’s enterprise software.