Kellie:

Let me clarify something, with all due respect to the members of the community that have given you good information on the inner workings (magic) of DNN.

You do not need to use the Source version of DNN, in fact, I would recommend you to stay away from it.  There is a lot of confusion about this, specially from newbies to DNN.  If you want to install DNN to start learning about it, do testing, or even develop the actual production Web site on your PC, get the "Install Package", get rid of the "Source Package".  Opposed to what most people understand from the language of the downloads page (which I have said in repeated occasions needs a major revision), the "Install Package" contains all the functionality of DNN, nothing whatsoever is missing, except the source code of course.  You can think of the Install Package, and actually of DNN, as a complete, shrink-wrapped product ready to be installed and configured out of the box.  You don't need to compile anything and you don't need any development tools whatsoever.

Don't think it is a trivial endeavour either, as cool as DNN is, to use it effectively, it requires you to have good knowledge of the Windows O/S, HTML, IIS, SQL Server, and ASP.Net from the installation and configuration perspectives.  You do not need programming knowledge unless you want to develop your own custom modules.

By the way, if you are considering DNN that means your organization is a Microsoft Shop, at least to some extent, so you would not have to sell to the management the .Net technologies (you'd hope so).  DNN gives you a solid framework where to build a highly functional Web site or custom Web based application fairly quickly, your mileage may vary according to staff experience with ASP.Net and SQL Server.  But discuss the alternatives with your management in case they don't feel too comfy, instead of using the DNN solid and extremely well tested architecture (by thousands worlwide) you can write, test, and deploy your own.  Do you really want to write code to manage logins, user accounts, access roles, etc. yourself???  Web site or application security for a DNN based site can also be easily addressed by the fact that there are thousands or organizations in the commercial, non-profits, government, and military sectors using DNN.

Hope this helps, I also hope you have the chance to give DNN a good try.

Carlos