.NET Magazine has an article about SQL Server Yukon in the June 2003 issue. Besides the usual stuff (C# and VB.NET support for stored procs, UDFs, etc.), there were a few new things:
- Microsoft is going to make it as easy to change where the data-access code executes as changing a namespace. By changing the System.Data.SqlClient to System.Data.SqlServer, all data-access code will execute on the SQL Server. I still think being able to execute all data-access code on the same tier as the database will be a huge performance gain. Watch the TPCC benchmarks!
- SQL Server Workbench is fully-integrated into VS.NET, so you get all the great Intellisense and debugging features.
- Implementing the new INullable interface handles NULL values. This will eliminate many lines of code that deal with null values.
- XML is a native datatype. IMO, this will probably be the deathblow to XML-databases, since after Microsoft does it, IBM and Oracle will do it too. There never really was a need for XML-specific databases anyway. XML is a way to markup data, not separate it (like the relational model).