TSQL Features in SQL 2008 Vs SQL 2005

What are the advanced Features With SQL2008 over SQL2005 Particularly with TSQL

From stackoverflow

• The big one for me, although it's not really T-SQL related, is intellisense. About time too :)

  As for the language...

  T-SQL finally got shortcut assignment in 2008:

  SET @var *= 1.18
  

  The MERGE statement allows all sorts of modification goodness, based on the results of joining tables together.

  There are a bunch of GROUP BY enhancements, like GROUPING SETS, and operations on cubes.

  There are new datatypes to play with

  • hierarchyid, useful in self-referencing datasets
  • date and time can be treated separately
  • geography and geometry, for GIS systems and other geographical applications

  There are a few others too. See the official new features page for more.

• Hi

  There are new features like-

  • Compound Assignment Operators i.e. +=, -= etc.
  • Increased size support for user defined data types.
  • Four new date and time data types.

  It is all covered here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721270.aspx

  cheers

• There is Standard way to insert many rows with single INSERT statement:

  INSERT INTO Tab VALUES (...,...,...), (...,...,...), ... (...,...,...)