ssmoot / gmail.com wrote:
>>> These people have probably been hammering C for years
>
> This is my fault for not being very clear. Actually the target
> audience is an ASP/VBScript programmer, and a SQL developer who has
> focused on Microsoft SQL Server 2000's DTS package development for
> the past few years.
>
> The mandate is that something is going to change. C# is up for
> evaluation. Having done a lot of C#, used NHibernate, Aspect#,
> ASP.NET, went to MonoRail, and then to Ruby and Rails, I'm very
> pro-Ruby. Technically I suppose anything is up for evaluation, so we
> could throw Java in the mix, but I don't see much reason to muddy the
> waters.

From what you write it seems MS languages are a better choice than Java as 
your people have quite a bit of experience in MS land.

> Naturally the more tools available the better IMO, and I plan to use
> C, C++, C#, etc in the future, but I'm trying to make a focused effort
> here and keep it simple.

I'd leave C and C++ out of the mix if you're not forced to do low level 
stuff.  C# is powerful enough and it might be a good mix together with Ruby 
(as replacement for VB?).  OTOH the new VB has some nice features -  I heard 
it supports native threads now - something that Ruby can't at the moment.

Kind regards

    robert