As I am working with a new database project (within VS2008), and as I have never developed a database from scratch, I immediately began looking into how to manage a database within source control (in this case, Subversion).
I found some information on SO, including this post: Keeping development databases in multiple environments in sync. One of the answers in particular pointed to a number of a links, all of which had good, useful information.
I was reading a series of posts by K. Scott Allen which describe how he manages database change. From my reading (and please pardon the noobishness of my question), it seems as though the database itself is never checked into a repository. Rather, scripts that can build the database, along with test data (which is also populated from scripts) is checked into the repository. Ultimately, this means that, when a developer is testing his or her app, these scripts, which are part of the build process, are run. This ensures that the database is up-to-date, but is also run locally from every developer's machine.
This makes sense to me (if I am indeed reading that correctly). However, if I am missing something, I would appreciate correction or additional guidance. In addition, another question I wanted to ask - does this also mean that I should NOT check in the mdf or ldf files that are created from Visual Studio?
Thanks for any help and additional insight. Always appreciated.