Multiple development environments sharing single database

Hi all, I'm fairly new to MODx but I've fallen in love with it's flexibility and ease of use. One thing I'm struggling with is a setup configuration for developing across multiple computers. Ideally I'd like a scenario like this:

• All MODx files managed by SVN or HG
• Source code being modified and tested on multiple machines
• All development environments point to the same database

I'm not sure how to set this up as MODx seems to require hard-coded absolute paths, even in the database. The config files can easily be changed according to the developer's machine setup, but the workspace path in the shared database can't.

Am I going about this all wrong or is there a way to accomplish this?
Thanks!

In 2.2.x you can now set the workspace path to {core_path} or any setting that ends in _path. This is also the default for new installs. This should resolve the portability issues regarding package management.