Mike Schinkel wants Microsoft to create a stepping-stone language for .NET -- VBScript.NET.
A couple of thoughts:
There needs to be a language for .NET that presents the user a simplified object and typing model. Mike lays out the case very nicely.
Microsoft doesn't have to be the one to implement it. A great idea followed by "Microsoft, are you listening?" frustrates me. If you want to be a rock-and-roll star, grab yourself an electric guitar... And, yes, that means the options are becoming an advanced programmer yourself or starting your own company and hiring people. (I'd love to get offshore bids on that -- "Here's my grammar. Here's The CLI Annotated Standard. How much will a compiler cost me? Uh huh. And will you sign a fixed bid contract for that?" Heh. ) I know that sucks for people like Mike who are journeymen programmers (("journeyperson"? Yeah, that's probably what the style manual says...) but the payoffs are potentially a lot better than "Microsoft took that idea from me!"
In my opinion, Microsoft isn't likely to bite at Mike's idea. They've got Monad (or, rather, they'll have Monad in the Longhorn timeframe). I spoke with Monad Architect Jeffrey Snover last week. I personally think Monad could be a huge hit. It's too soon to tell whether it will succeed in the marketplace, but I think Monad is a very significant advance in thinking about scripting languages. It combines the advantages (pipes and filters, scriptability, dynamic) of UNIX shells like ksh and bsh with the advances of .NET (objects not text, the Base Class Library, access to stuff like WMI and the Registry using directory-like metaphors).
PDC attendees didn't get the initial Monad bits. Hmm... Actually, Googling for Monad with site:microsoft.com is amazingly unproductive. Are there any Monad blogs...?