Customizing existing Vala app

Question

I am planning to deep dive into vala language by reading the code that was/is developed by other developers as all the apps created for elementary os are openly coded on GitHub. But, I am Vala newbie.

Now, let's say I clone, Notes-Up. Now my question is -

1. After change, how can I see the output of changed code? Do I have to build each time?
2. Let's say after 50 changes I am satisfies now with modified code? How can I install that app so it always give me updated ( with 50 changes ) version of app?

Thanks in Advanced!

Answer 1

After change, how can I see the output of changed code? Do I have to build each time?

Yes, that's how compiled languages work. Note, however, that the build system will skip a lot of work it doesn't have to do; only generated C code that changes between compilations needs to be recompiled. Also, you can parallelize the build by running make -j instead of make.

Practically speaking, compile times for a small program like that are very quick. It depends on your CPU, but we're talking maybe a couple of seconds for an incremental build.

Let's say after 50 changes I am satisfies now with modified code? How can I install that app so it always give me updated ( with 50 changes ) version of app?

If you've passed the right options to CMake, you can just sudo make install to install system-wide. However, most experienced developers I know prefer to stick to the packaged versions for their system wide install when possible. jhbuild makes for a great development environment if you have multiple bleeding-edge components which need to work together.