Hello Group,
I am a long-time programmer (Apache/PHP/MySQL and quite a few others, since before there was such a thing as Windows, or even MS-DOS).
That said, I'm a newbie. I've been working with Drupal for just over a week, and though I am no stranger to working in a group, with version control, it has all been in corporate environments, and using Windows-based control systems like StarTeam and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.
I've already found and fixed several bugs I've uncovered in assorted modules I've installed, and so my questions:
1) What is the shortest learning curve to submitting a patch? I do have CVS-NT and Tortoise (though the latter is not installed yet). System is Win2K Pro.
2) Since I want to work with something resembling production-quality, I'm on 4.6.2, not CVS, though some of the modules I've patched are CVS because they aren't available for 4.6.2 -- how are all these related? Are there functions and features in Core CVS that the CVS modules rely on?
3) What is the most accepted protocol for updating another author's module(s)? Email the author directly first? Report a bug but don't mention the patch unless there is a long wait for issue resolution?