> 20 years ago there was some momentum behind Visual Basic .Net; but the language was so similar to C# that it just wasn't worth using.

IronPython[0] and IronRuby[1] would like a word... Largely so they could be remembered.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IronPython

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IronRuby