ScottGu has announced Microsoft WebMatrix. WebMatrix includes several parts for beginning and experienced developers.

WebMatrix is everything you need to build Web sites using Windows. It includes IIS Developer Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET (a Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular open-source apps.

WebMatrix provides an easy way to get started with Web development. With an integrated code editor and a database editor, Web site and server management, search optimization, FTP publishing, and more, WebMatrix provides a fresh, new Web site development experience that seamlessly bridges all the key components you need in order to create, run, and deploy a Web site.

As your needs grow, the code and skills you develop can seamlessly transition to Visual Studio - Microsoft’s premier development suite.

You can start from scratch using CSS, and JavaScript and then connect to a database or add dynamic server code using the new inline syntax for ASP.NET Web pages.

OR you can start with free and popular open-source Web applications that are just a click away. Simply select an application, and WebMatrix handles downloading, installing, and configuring it for you. Customize your site using the built-in code-editor and make it yours.

Experienced developers will be interested in

• IIS Developer Express, especially if you’ve had one of those issues where it worked differently in IIS than it did in Visual Web Developer.
• SQL Compact for file-based data store that can be updated to SQL Express or SQL Server.
• I believe you’ll be interested in ASP.NET “Razor” for it’s concise syntax.

If you’re starting out with Web development, you’ll like the way you can get a website started from scratch or from existing PHP or ASP.NET apps.

Getting Started

Click here to learn more about WebMatrix.  An early beta of WebMatrix can now be downloaded here. 

You can read online tutorials and watch videos about WebMatrix by visiting the www.asp.net web-site.  Today’s beta is a first preview of a lot of this technology, and so the documentation and samples will continue to be refined in the weeks and months ahead.

For overviews all about WebMatrix, see Scott Gu’s posting Introducing WebMatrix and Scott Hanselman's posting Microsoft WebMatrix in Context and Deploying Your First Site.

Bruce D. Kyle
ISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation