[vtk-developers] Starting out

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

hi,

I'm certainly no expert but I guess some information is better than
none.

>>>>> "DI" == Dean Inglis <dean.inglis at on.aibn.com> writes:

    DI> 2) Should I alter my vtk source directly or should I
    DI> copy/edit/test and overwrite...then what to do with cvs?

AFAIK one can simply make changes on the checked out CVS tree, build
everything, test them and then commit the changes to CVS.  Finally
make an announcement about the changes that were made.  If necessary
add a new test for the new class or feature.  Once you commit the
changes take a look at the dashboard and make sure that your changes
did not trigger an error somewhere.  Sometimes errors might not show
up on the OS where you build and develop and another platform/OS can
have trouble.  Checking out the dashboard helps with this.

If someone else is also likely to make changes it makes sense to
announce what you plan to do on the devel list in order to prevent
conflicts.

If the changes you are about to make are very extensive it might help
to keep a backup of the older files.  You could use CVS to retrieve
older versions but I find that it helps having a local copy of
unmodified files.

Hope this helps.
prabhu