As a developer on the Microsoft Platform, there’s nothing as simple as setting up your development machine with the Web Platform Installer.
Version 3.0 – which is the latest at the time of this post – includes fantastic tools like WebMatrix and Visual Studio Express, as well as cutting-edge frameworks like the new Orchard CMS and the latest version of ASP.NET MVC.
Everything can be downloaded for you, and any dependancies are automatically selected as required. I remember how tricky it was before: you had to download all this stuff, then click on each installer in turn. What a pain!
But don’t click all those links above, just check out microsoft.com/web.