Fog Creek rewrote everything in a brand new language they invented that compiles down into multiple other languages.
So, in actuality, the projects are the exact opposite of each other.
Wasabi started out as a VBScript -> PHP compiler, allowing us to keep the existing FogBugz source, but run it on Unix and Linux, where ASP wasn't available. Once we had that, it hit us that it'd be pretty easy to add a VBScript -> VBScript compiler, at which point we could add language extensions. So we did. This allowed new code to take advantage of things like macros, better declaration syntax, lambdas and so on, without rewriting any existing code. Finally, because it was clear that ASP was dead, and specifically because we didn't want to rewrite FogBugz from scratch, we modified Wasabi to target .NET.
The whole point of Wasabi was to avoid rewriting FogBugz to support other platforms and technologies. I have no idea where you got the idea we rewrote the entire program; if we'd done that, we'd have just done it in C#.
I think the mythology of Wasabi has become larger than life and pretty heavily distorted.
Wasabi did extend VBScript to add objects and other language features, which were gradually incorporated into the code base, but just on changes going forward.
So, really, it is almost exactly the same thing.
Both companies had huge investments in a code base and found a geeky way to keep their code base while reaping modern benefits.
Most things are toys compared to face book, Google or Twitter. That doesn't make them pointless.
Wasabi is an app-specific dialect of VBScript used by one company to deploy a bug tracker to small teams. HipHop is a general-purpose PHP compiler whose output is used at scale by the world's largest social networking site.
I can write a file system that will work fine on my computer, with my workload, and maybe even write an essay about how productive that makes me. But I don't think you'd want to install it.
These two projects are not in the same league - they're not even in the same sport - and so I am baffled to see Wasabi come up in this thread at all.
In this case, your tone.
Those earlier comments are comparing the strategy that Fog Creek took versus the one that Facebook has taken. The strategies are similar, and so the comparison makes sense.
It should be noted that Wasabi is a general purpose programming language. It is Turing complete (up to relatively trivial finite-memory issues, just like any other general purpose programming language). Like C, for example. It should also be noted that Wasabi is a .NET language. It has full access to the .NET Framework and all of its classes.
One could use Wasabi to write a C compiler.
[NB: I am a Fog Creek developer, working on the FogBugz team.]
What evidence do you have that Wasabi is a toy? I seriously doubt you have any knowledge on the topic either way.