Some things like LINQ, Entity Framework and some features of ASP.NET MVC are still unmatched by most of the competition. The one thing I really miss is the sim

Some things like LINQ, Entity Framework and some features of ASP.NET MVC are still unmatched by most of the competition. The one thing I really miss is the simplicity and productivity of ASP.NET WebForms. It preceded Prototype, jQuery, PJAX, Turbolinks, Livewire, Hotwire, Next, Remix, Meteor. And it partially accomplished what lot of those only did later, but did so in the early 2000s. And it what was, IMO, a bit more "polished" and "finished" than most of what came later. It allowed us for making our own components, and had server-side rendered HTML but it allowed for richer interactions, the kind that we needed jQuery for a while, and today we need React components for. It had a vibrant community, but with the downside that it was 100% commercial. Visual Studio took care of everything we needed, it was indeed just about pressing F5 like someone said.