C# Read Sharepoint List - Without Automagic

Question

I need to complete a very simple application. We want to archive some Sharepoint Lists at work to a SQL Server so that another application can run some analysis on them. However every tutorial I can find gives the Automagic "First connect by right clicking the references and selecting "Add web reference"...

I can't use that method because the dev environment cannot see the production system (and we dont' have a test system, sorry).

I need to connect completely programmatically, open a list, and export it directly to a table (though the export is less important, it's the connection I'm missing).

So I need to connect to a list ala "SiteURL/_vti_bin/"

Answer 1

If you can't run the application on the server using the object model. You can always create your "automagic" web reference by hitting a publicly facing Lists.asmx web service on the internet and just changing your url at runtime.