Probably not quite the resurrection of Visual Interdev, but the description of the goals for WebMatrix and the features offered are strikingly similar to the promises of Visual Interdev back in the days.
I read the following about WebMatrix at All About Microsoft
WebMatrix is a bundle of a lightweight version of Microsoft’s IIS Web Server, known as IIS Express; an updated version of SQL Server Compact Edition; and a new “view-engine option” for ASP.Net, known as “Razor,” which enables developers to embed Visual Basic or C# within HTML.
The goal of WebMatrix, according to its developers, is “to make it really easy to get started with web development.” The new tool “minimizes the number of concepts someone needs to learn in order to get simple things done, and includes and integrates all of the pieces necessary to quickly build Web sites,” Microsoft officials have said.
That sounds a lot like the promises of RAD that Visual Interdev gave in the previous millennium. From the description above Razor sounds an awful lot like ASP-pages.
Microsoft® Visual InterDev™ is the Web development component of Microsoft® Visual Studio® 6.0. Using Visual InterDev 6.0, you can create anything from a simple HTML-based Web page to complete data-driven Web sites and applications as well as integrated solutions that incorporate components written in any Visual Studio language.
Quite fun how power vs. simplicity swings back and forth, HTML=>ASP=>Web Classes=>COM/MTS=>.NET Web Forms=>.NET MVC=>Razor
