Drupal - Can I turn cache off for the development deployment?

Install the devel module which adds a cache clear option for administrators. You'll find a devel block to add to a region for quick cache clearing, or if you install the admin menu and get a quick menu in the top left for clearing various caches in Drupal.

If you like the command line install drush and use the drush cc all command to clear your sites caches. Beware that currently drush cc doesn't clear the Varnish cache if that's applicable to your setup.

If you are using Drupal 7 you can always set your caching to using DrupalFakeCache, which is normally only used during the installation process. To set that, drop the following code snippet in your settings.php:

include_once(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/includes/cache.inc');
include_once(DRUPAL_ROOT . '/includes/cache-install.inc');
$conf['cache_default_class'] = 'DrupalFakeCache';

'Performance' page in administration > site configuration will allow you to enable / disable caching of selected site elements. Theme templates are typically cached more persistently but can be flushed within the same 'performance' page.

'Administration menu' module will provide a shortcut in a toolbar if cache flushes need to be done more regularly - during theme dev I find myself constantly flushing.