What's the Skinny on .NET?

My impression of .NET is that it is mainly just hype. The only thing new that I can see it doing is to allow you to write web apps in VB, which I have no desire to do.

What does .NET buys us? What are the advantages of learning it and what are the disadvantages?

It appears that we need to load an entire .NET framework onto our Windows systems; is there any reason why I would want to sully my system with .NET?

I don't think there is a definate answer, i mostly hear complaints for the same reason, the .net framework this and .net framework that. Make my client download more than they need to with vb.net... its' true...

I use the .net for asp alot. And it's nice having the ability to do C# codebacking or vb. The dynamic displays are nice too. The problem is some of our servers don't have the .net installed so you can't host those pages off of them. I just like the idea of using error objects that can display an error message wherever the object located in the form, and the code backing makes it really modulized too. These are just some examples, obviously there's alot more, Can this be done with divs and javacode and ssi, yea, it can. Do i think it's easier/cleaner with .NET, yea, i do.

For programmers doing vb alot, yea, it probably makes more sense to do it in vb 5 or 6 and not .NET. http://forums.devshed.com/t68885/s.html
great post on the advantages of vb over .net.