July

Thoughts on WebMatrix

WebMatrix Start Screen The WebMatrix announcement last week triggered a range of reactions on Twitter. It also brought back some personal memories.

A decade ago (wow), I started a little tool to simplify using and developing asp.net server controls as a side project, and it grew bigger and was eventually released using the name "WebMatrix". It was a fun project, and my first “serious” side project so to speak. There were a few interesting things we did there, both technical and non-technical. It is great seeing similar things happening in this generation of WebMatrix branded tooling.

Vertical and Scenario-Focused Tooling

I personally think having a variety of tools is good, especially if they can focus on different verticals, and are optimized for different scenarios/tasks. There is a saying – use the right tool for the job. And the reality is there is a wide spectrum of developers and correspondingly a breadth of requirements and expectations. Lots of professional/enterprise developers will find Visual Studio and its rich set of features + ecosystem a must-have for their work. At the same time, there is a huge number of Web developers, designers and scripters that primarily use Notepad, Textmate or a simple text editor to quickly build and manage their web sites and applications. For those folks, the simplicity that comes from the minimal set of options is a feature in itself. WebMatrix caters to that huge audience. This is true today, and was true back then.

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