Currently using VS 2003 on .Net 1.1 and I currently don’t have SQL Server (I
know its cheap)



Sitting on my desk is VS 2005 beta 2 and SQL 2005 beta 2.



I am starting a brand new website and I really want to use the Community
Starter Kit to do so only from what I have read, I need SQL on my local
machine for it to work. Now I have SQL 2005 beta but installing that means
installing everything .Net 2.0 related. I don’t have a problem buying SQL
2000 just to get my app started but it seems retarded to start something new
on an old platform.



My concern is that if I upgrade everything to beta 2 when the official
release comes out my apps will not work because I am sure they are not
concerned with backward compatibility with beta 2 as they are for .Net 1.1
/1.0 and I am sure web hosting sites will hurry to kill ASP.NET beta and move
to 2.0.



So…do I start making my web app in beta 2, wait a few weeks, or suck it up
and make it all 1.1? This is my dilemma. Additional concern is the fact that
my current version of VS 2003 is an academic version and given I am no longer
enrolled I might have to wait awhile before getting another academic version
of VS 2005.



Suggestions?