Root Developing ROMs?

[Mayhem]

Can anyone tell me what all is involved in developing ROMs? I mean aside from getting the source. HTC released the source for our phone a while ago, but most (all?) developers moved on to newer phones.

I've managed to find some ROMs based on the official ICS release but those are mostly a mix of ICS/CM and have issues.

If it doesn't require brain surgery and months of time, I'm thinking of trying my hand.

I'm no programmer; I work in QA for a living and know just enough about Linux and Unix to be dangerous (rm -r anyone? )

Is there a tutorial or how-to somewhere?

 

[Rukbat]

If it doesn't require brain surgery and months of time, I'm thinking of trying my hand.

I'm no programmer

Those two are pretty much mutually exclusive. Unless you're talking about adding apps, applying patches that others have written, etc., developing a ROM means writing code. (Developing means code designing and writing.)

 

[Mayhem]

Well, I was hoping that if there was a tutorial somewhere I might be able to wing it. I'm a hands-on learner and I was hoping that taking the source code would help.

I assume that the ROM could be loaded in an emulator and tested before actually installing it on a phone, but I'm not sure.

 

[Mayhem]

Just found something: Introduction : How to build an Android ROM - XDA-University