Microsoft Introduces Web Matrix

[Mazhar]

Microsoft today released a beta version of WebMatrix, a free tool for "building, customizing and deploying websites in one common, straightforward experience." WebMatrix targets developers of all skill sets, and can be downloaded today at www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix.

WebMatrix is a tool that includes the following:

• Web server: IIS Developer Express is a lightweight server that helps developers build and test ASP.NET sites and applications and works with Visual Studio 2010, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, and now WebMatrix.
• Database: SQL Server Compact Edition 4 is a free, embedded, database engine that enables easy database storage. It works with existing .NET-based data APIs and ASP.NET Web applications.
• Programming Framework: ASP.NET provides developers a faster way to build standards-based websites with its syntaxes and built-in helpers, which both simplify the use of ASP.NET to perform increasingly complex and common tasks, such as connecting to a database, displaying a Twitter feed, or embedding a video.

For more info, check out Scott Guthrie's blog post:

This tool is free, provides core coding and database support, integrates with an open source web application gallery, and includes support to easily publish/deploy sites and applications to web hosting providers.

WebMatrix is a 15MB download (50MB if you don't have .NET 4 installed) and is quick to install.

The 15MB download includes a lightweight development tool, IIS Express, SQL Compact Edition, and a set of ASP.NET extensions that enable you to build standalone ASP.NET Pages using the new Razor syntax, as well as a set of easy to use database and HTML helpers for performing common web-tasks. WebMatrix can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.

Here's a shot:

Source

[TechFreak:)]

Sounds familiar to WebMatrix which is IDE for ASP.Net 1.1.

It looks interesting and I think it's intended for younger people (e.g. students). Good for them, maybe they will get more popularity for ASP.Net platform. Sadly, it still only works on Windows and is expensive when you need something more than basic stuff.

[Evolution]

I like that it supports popular apps right away i.e. Drupal :) I'm tempted to just mess around with it.