I've been tweeting lately on SharePoint Development tools and @MattBremer kindly pointed out that STSDev 2008 v2.0 was released last week.

What is STSDev?

STSDev codeplex project originally started by the Ted Pattison Group David Mann is currently the lead on this although there have been no updates for a long time. STSDev v1.3 is a stable product which is widely used across the community, along with WSPBuilder. I won't repeat what has been compared already on the Wiki (definately worth a read!),

What is STSDev 2008?

STSDev 2008 v2.0 codeplex project is a branched version of the original STSDev v1.3. Just to highlight what STSDev 2008 v2.0 has tried to do is integrate with Visual Studio 2008 (like WSPBuilder) rather than being a separate executable.

The problem is I downloaded this version into a clean VM (without STSDev, VSeWSS or WSPBuilder). I found that even using the new integration with VS2008 for New Project and selecting any of the templates provided...that most of them wouldn't build without errors.

I can see the advantage of the integration and also with the ability to add new project items (like WSPBuilder) such as Features, WebParts, Workflow, Web Services etc.
WSPBuilder doesn't allow you to have exposure to the build events like STSDev .targets file which a lot of SharePoint Developers like to have exposure too. But WSPBuilder is a lot more elegant in terms of extending what Project Items are available by using Templates.

UPDATE 24-Feb-2009 - I've communicated with David McWee who is the Lead on this project and have gone into more detail on the 6 errors I found with the release and posted them on CodePlex Issue register for the project.

VSeWSS 1.3 CTP - Microsoft's Tool

VSeWSS 1.3 CTP has been released over the weekend, I've had a good play with it and already posted an issue I have. It is interesting to see such negative feedback on the product across the community (won't quote people, but its easy to find). This has been illustrated in the comparison page as well.
The main issue around it seems to be the lack of 12 Hive structure support. I can see where the team has come from in terms of reducing the knowledge needed on SharePoint architecture to build solutions...but the flipside is that debugging for these guys without fundamental knowledge is going to be impossible!
I know VS2010 tools have had some sneak peaks from Somasegar, but seriously it looks like they are just integration VSeWSS 1.3 directly into it.

UPDATE 24-Feb-2009 -I've communicated with Paul Andrew (Product Manager) on this and he has corrected some isses on the comparison page in terms of what VSeWSS can do in terms of producing a package that can be source controlled and also a command line utility which drops dependency on Visual Studio.

Hold off

If you really want Visual Studio integration, I would stick with WSPBuilder personally - the main reason being around 12 Hive support.
If you want the exposure to build targets I would look at STSDev v1.3. At this stage STSDev 2008 v2.0 is not stable enough to use on projects.

The Future

I have had brief discussions with Carsten Keutmann to try and work to merge the STSDev and WSPBuilder features to get the best of both worlds. In my opinion we should use WSPBuilder as the base because it is a more elegant code base and just pull across some of the templates that are missing and expose the build targets.

We don't want to fragment the market!

The last thing the SharePoint Community needs is a fragmented list of SharePoint Development Tools. It would be great to consolidate this. I have tried to make it easier for people to chose with the comparison page.
Hopefully the team at STSDev 2008 v2.0 will also help to consolidate into a single tool to go in the direction of the Ultimate SharePoint Development Tool. I believe the reason they branched off originally was due to them finding it hard to contact the STSDev CodePlex project team to enhance that version. Be great to merge those changes back in and have the one project.

The Ultimate SharePoint Development Tool

I have been busy trying to encourage the community to add to the wish list of 'The Ultimate SharePoint Development Tool' and also to review the comparisons of the 3 main tools WSPBuilder, STSDev and VSeWSS (Microsoft).

I strongly encourage everyone to add their ideas to the wiki pages!