I am a single developer that tries to apply the Agile and Scrum ideas in my work.
One aspect of implementing this methodologies are short iterations.
In the end of my first iteration I deliver the basic application to the client (a simple desktop application with Linq to Entities).
From this point and on I do all my DB changes with SQL code and save all the changes as DB deltas (by their running order).
These allow me to keep changing the DB, but make my work really slow as I can’t use any DB GUI editor (or I won’t have a solid record of the changes).
Can you describe a better practice that will server my goals?
Yes – Get yourself a copy of Visual Studio Database Edition (assuming you are using .Net and Visual Studio). It will make your development life much easier with regards to managing, versioning and deploying your database schema changes.
BTW, VSDE is included if you are using Visual Studio Premium or Ultimate.