When I started my tinkering, I accepted that I was going to have to put either SQL Server 2000 Dev Edition, or MSDE on my machines in order to get a decent feel for things. Most of the applications I wanted to tinker with involved some level of database access, and I wanted to get a feel for SQL anyway as it's obviously something which is used in a lot of corporate applications, which is where my ASP.NET is mostly going to be used.
Turns, out there's an alternative to installing SQL Server or MSDE if you'd rather not clutter up your machine. You can setup a simple ODBC Data Provider, and access text files in a directory as if they were tables inside a database. There's obviously going to be some limitations and upper limits with this, but if you're in the tinkering phase or the small sample application phase, and possibly if you have a low spec machine, then this could be a nice alternative to a full blown database service.
(Thanks Doug!)
Tags: ASP.NET