MicrosoftHi Naveen_Shankar,
I believe the confusion is related to ASP and the lifecycle management. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/ page does not involve ASP or Active Server Pages as an item. For Microsoft, it may seem obvious that a product that has been updated for 24 years, which is a period longer than many developers' lifetime today, should be assumed obsolete. Especially when there is a successor released 2 years after that last release, the message may look clear for Microsoft.
However, it does not look the same for many people. People built their tooling around it and they have not spent efforts to replace the ASP with ASP.NET or any other modern alternative for the last 22 years. Considering PHP is older than ASP, it has been supported and updated, https://www.php.net/archive/2024.php#2024-07-04-2, and it is more modern than ASP. Also, between the first release on December 1996 and last release in November 2000, Active Server Pages lived less than 4 years. The hiatus is 6 times the lifespan of the language.
It is better for Microsoft to align with the ASP community trough clear communication, adding ASP to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/, writing a date of death on the tombstone. VBScript deprecation is yet another nail in the coffin but the job is not complete. Though one could assume the official EOS/EOL was January 2002, the date of the successor ASP.NET, it is better to write things down. To me, this should have been communicated 20 years ago. It's late but this miscommunication is the problem of MS.
Finally, MS is well-known for backward compatibility and long-term support. An implicit deprecation of an old product does not align with this policy. It is better to communicate clearly, explain the lifecycle of ASP, apologize for lack of communication on behalf of your colleagues, and write an eulogy on ASP. I believe it is time to honor the past, celebrate the present, embrace the future. No assumptions, just clear and transparent communication.
