[rvm-research] Procedure to add new code in the system

Hello. I don't really know how to approach this, so i'm just going to ask
straight away:

I'm studying Computer Science and I have a assignment in Virtual Systems
course. We chose to study Jikes RVM. Right now we got the pretty much the
basics (theory) of how Jikes runs, the compilers and the bytecode
manipulation and the MMTk gc.

Our next step is to make some optimization in the system.
To do this, we looked around in Jira for some open issues. We were
interested in performing some optimization, in the Optimizing Compiler
component.

We found this open issue that we think we could implement, at least some
part of it:

https://xtenlang.atlassian.net/browse/RVM-564

It's about the Array Bounds Check. I already browse in the mercurial for
the commits related to this and I have found that the initial prototype was
removed in the 2.2.1 release. What I was hoping I could do is, basing on
the code from the 2.2.0 relase, incorporate the bounds check prototype in
the most recent release.

I have no clue what's the procedure to incorporate new code in a system so
big as Jikes. As you can imagine, i only have experience in academic
programming.

I already searched the user guide in the section "Modifying the RVM".
Unfortunately, as I have seen so far, this only points out what is the
conventions that the new code must have. What I was hoping is that, I would
get some help on what's the general procedure to implement new code in the
system. What are the basics steps?  Can i just add the new classes in a
package that I create in the src folder?
In general, Is there a procedure one must follow when adding new code to
the system?

Also, in a different subject, let's say I modify the source code of the
system, adding just some println's in the methods. I would do this as a way
to understand what's going on in the system. Now, to test the newly added
printlns in the code, do I have to do a complete clean of the system and
then compile entirely it again?
Obviously this takes quite some time because it is creating the boot image
and it takes a while for the complete system to build in my machine. Is
there a more simpler way to do this? Maybe re-build the components i have
changed? Is that possible?

I'm sorry if all this is super basics, it's just that I have absolutely no
experience in messing with this large systems. I hope I could get some
guidelines.
Thank you in advance for all the help

Best regards,
Luís Costa

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