[...]Also, it is my impression that coders are often reluctant to ask what seems like very basic questions, because they know how much effort you and Mitch are already putting into GIMP devlopment, and know that basic questions are often the kind that take the most effort to answer.
Well, that is, please excuse me, very stupid. We aren't putting our free time into cleaning up the code for ourselves only. We would love to see more people working on the core and I would very much appreciate if you could stop spreading this FUD that hacking the core would be something that only experts could consider to do.
I have to back up Sven here.
I am currently trying to get my nose in the code by submitting patches to easy-fix bugs. I asked him and other developers very stupid questions and they always have answered nicely and helpfully. It is quite obvious that they will help people trying to hack the core, as these very people can become Gimp developers later, and giving them some answers when they are stuck is far more productive than doing it for them. It took them between 15 seconds and 3 minutes to answer each of my stupid questions, which is far less than the time required to build a tutorial. And above all, trying to make my way into the code before giving up and shamefully asking those questions, made me understand the Gimp code a bit more each time, which you cannot achieve if you only follow a tutorial written for you.
The Gimp developers took the time to add 'easy-fix' keyword to some bugs. This can be seen as a waste of time as they could fix these themselves in short time, but it would be harder for beginners to help them and they may lose some help offers. What I am trying to tell is : if Sven says it's easy, then it is. Maybe you'll struggle with some parts of the code, but if you try it and ask precise questions when you're lost I am positive you'll get an answer to help you go on.
Granted, this takes some time, but it is no duty and you can do it at your pace (mine is very slow!)
I hope you will give it another try.
