Dev environment vs. Production Environmen

[Kamran2]

I just set up a dev shop on Partners for a client. My question is, when I move this to a live, paid site, how can I keep working on it? Obviously, I don't want to keep experimenting and working on a live site. I prefer t have a dev copy and deploy my chnages when I am ready.

Has anybody done this? What are the steps?

[CarlowSEO]

What are you working on? Just a theme? Work on those in unpublished versions.

OR 

If it is more then setup another development site, and you will have to manage synching the information between the two... 

[Kamran2]

It is more the second one. But the question is how to sync the information between the two. Do I have to do it manually? Is it possible to have a local, desktop environment for development and deploy tolive site when ready?

[BrickRiverLab]

Same problem here. How is this a $100B platform when there is no way to include a simple dev server in the development process?

Mind-boggling.