Visual Studio 2010 - SharePoint support

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx

SharePoint Development in Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 marks a major advance in usability and functionality for SharePoint developers, helping you accomplish tasks like:

• Customizing SharePoint with the help of new project and item templates.
• Creating Web parts and application pages using new visual designers.
• Designing association and initiation forms for your workflows.
• Aggregating and integrating back-end data into your application using Business Data Catalog (BDC) models.
• Importing existing solution packages (.wsp files) and then modifying and extending them.
• Customizing features and packages using new designers and explorers.
• Deploying and debugging SharePoint applications as easily as pressing F5.
• Navigating SharePoint sites using Server Explorer.

Also, check out http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/277495/microsoft_visual_studio_boost_sharepoint