No dev environment, but making changes directly onto prod? Nice, that's livin' on the edge, that
Well yeah, I don't like it either but it's the way this site was originally coded (damn me). It's not too easy to move to a different server which was why I started to recode the whole shebang. That was proving too long winded though and we needed changes to be done immediately. I like to fly by the seat of my pants anyway and it makes it more exciting and tests my skills to get it right first time (which I didn't this time obviously lol)
Yeah, I don't actually do dev / prod for my own site, either, but that's mostly cause I think: "It's my site! It's my damn right to make it go down with errors!" It's also a great extra incentive to finish what you start without slacking off
Btw, I've been wondering. What's the site written in? And does it use a CMS or framework or such?