VORST stands for Value Over Replacement Software and Technology. I borrowed this concept from Baseball Prospectus. They use VORP, or Value Over Replacement Player, as a measure of the relative value of various baseball players. Specifically, VORP is "The number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player at the same position would contribute if given the same percentage of team plate appearances. " A player with a VORP of 0 is no better or worse than "one or more of the best available players .... who can be obtained with minimal expenditure of team resources." A negative VORP means the team would be better off with the replacement-level player. A postive VORP means they wouldn't. Last year, Barry Bonds had a VORP of about 140, which means he was worth about 14 wins more than a replacement-level player. That's a lot of wins and means he was worth his high cost. If you are a baseball fan I highly recommend the BP Web site, as well as the Baseball Prospectus 2005 book.

What does this have to do with software? Think of "replacement-level" as an alternative. An alternative baseball player. An alternative activity you could be doing. An alternative piece of software. Compared to Visual Studio 2005, I think of the "replacement-level" software as whatever you are using now, which can be obtained with minimal cost because you are currently using it. Moving to VS 2005 has a cost. The cost may be low if you are already using VS 2003. The cost may be high if you are using VB 6, Access, Fox. What is the value of VS 2005 over the software you are currently using? What is the value of .NET over the technology you are currently using? And is the value high enough to be worth the cost?

My goal is to increase the value of VS 2005 over replacement-level software. Through writings, speaking, blogging, etc I hope to make it easier for people to move to VS 2005, no matter what they are using now and no matter what their experience is with .NET. Microsoft makes VS more attractive by making it better. I want to help make it more attractive by making it easier to use / less hard to learn.