staying in stable but compiling for sid

[Kamaraju S Kusumanchi <kamaraju@bluebottle.com>]

Hi all
    I want to run software only from Stable (ie Etch) when I am doing
non-debian related work. However, when I am doing debian related work
(ex :- fixing some bugs in the BTS) I want to work in unstable (ex :-
compile packages for sid). Is this kind of think possible?

The easiest idea is to run two machines one with unstable and one with
stable. But I dont have the luxury of running two machines.

I also thought of installing 2 Debian versions on the same machine and
sharing the /home directory. But I am skeptical about compatibility of rc
files across different versions. (Ex:- vim 7's rc files may not work with
vim 6's rc files etc.,)

Is there any other elegant solution? I have heard about chroot, pbuilder
etc., Will they be of any help in this scenario?

thanks
raju

-- 
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/