Visual Studio 2008 Orcas

I have about 2 months testing the Orcas and I wanted to mention to new features that attracts my attention and it seems that they can be interesting
The new version is already in Beta 2, you can download the Express edition for free from the Microsoft site.
What's new VS 2005 ?
I'm going to mention only the most important features that where add to this new version.
LINQ : (Langauge Integrated Query)
This new (it's a set of library class) code name is interesting only for SQL Developer.
LINQ will replace the SQL Query language (that is unfamiliar especially for who program with SQL for the first time) with a native language for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities. So new developers don't have to learn the SQL query language but only to know this easy to use classes.

This may be no so interesting for most of programers (LINQ) but WPF is!!!
WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is a new model of forms! It will allow you to make high quality forms and very nice design.
WPF is different then the normal Windows forms. The new orcas offers new tools that allow you to design your forms (trace lines,cercles..) the buttons and check boxes are more customizable and you can change the look of object. This thing was missing (Easy Design) especially on the 6 version.
Microsoft now ta ke care of design as much as code ease.
I found a nice example of WPF made by Martin Grayson, a very nice Glass Button. You can found it in his blog http://blogs.msdn.com/mgrayson
Hope it interest some of you to change to the new ORCAS and I'm going to make more articles about it