I'm playing around on a couple of test sites with an idea I had during a BoF at Drupalcon. Running two sites off the same database and prefixing certain tables should allow for a simple dev/prod environment.

The idea is to isolate the configurations for the two different sites in two differently prefixed sets of tables, and allow all the content, users, taxonomy, etc. to mingle. To test this I've set up two subdomains, dev1.castlin.net and dev2.castlin.net. Here is the entry in settings.php for dev2 (dev1 is strikingly similar):

I spent a bit of time today updating my portfolio, and finally got my Drupal Association membership established.