I am writing this blog from Orlando where I am attending Microsoft Tech-ED Developer 2008 conference. Yesterday I attended an informative pre-conference session on SQL Server 2008 New Features for Developers.  The product is currently in CTP 6 (Community Technology Preview), but Release Candidate 0 is expected any day. The presentation was delivered by Bob Beauchemin of SQLSkills. Bob  is a SQL Server MVP and the author of “A Developer’s Guide to SQL Server 2008”.

SQL Server 2008 has several features of interest to developers.  One major enhancement from a developer’s UI perspective is the addition of Intellisense in SQL Server Management Studio.  This provides a familiar look and feel to developers who are used to doing development in Visual Studio. Other major items to be included in the upcoming release are the following:

·         New T-SQL Functionality

·         Alternative Data Structure and Storage

·         Client Enhancements

·         XML Enhancements

·         SQLCLR Enhancements

·         Service Broker Enhancements

Each one of these topics is worthy of a lengthy blog.  This blog will focus on these T-SQL enhancements.

·         DateTime support – we can now separate date and time, which saves space. There is support for a greater range of years with the new DateTime2 data type with greater accuracy. Variable precision saves space as well.

·         Table Valued Parameters -  This allows us to insert data structures such as a single order with several line items in a single server round trip. Also know as table valued row constructors.

·         TSQL syntax – we can declare and initialize local variables in a single roundtrip.  We can also use increment operators such as +=.

·         Grouping sets  - allow multiple group bys with performance enhancements

·         Merge – Can be used to perform multiple DML operations on a single set

·         Insert over DML – an enhancement to the OUTPUT clause that allows us to put the results of an OUTPUT statement in a nested INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or MERGE statement into a target table.

·         FORCESEEK hint – overrides the initial plan for a query selected by the Query Optimizer.

Stay tuned for more updates from Tech-ED!