John,

If you really want simple module development then use the method described by Vladan and then take it one step further by using Entity Spaces (ww.entityspaces.net). ES will take care of all you data access and make life very easy.

As Mitch says attach the debugger to the w3wp.exe and you are up and running.
I already have those patches applied and it is still slooow

Declan

within a single page, you can use Inter module communication (IMC), please refer to the developers guide and the tutorials at dotnetnuke.adefwebserver.com for details.

between pages, you can pass parameters.

Actually IMC is probably the only thing that I do not cover on dotnetnuke.adefwebserver.com. The reason is every time I have found someone feels they need it, they are going down a architectural path that I can't recommend. I usually suggest they use one of these methods:

Module Navigation Options

As to the build times, I have little patience so trust me I would not use the WSP method if I had to sit there for 20 minutes waiting for a build. I simply save my file and refresh the web browser. If I need to debug I use the attach to process methods. Using WSP allows us to never lose the source code. The code you see on the server is the code that is running. If I find I must do a build a lot I simply create a DNN site that contains only the module I am working on.. Because I only use the install version of DNN it will build in less than 1 minute.

You do not have to check the entire DNN site into source control, see:

Using Source Control with DotNetNuke