How do you develop a modx component or extra?

Hi all,
I'm still newbie to modx and just joined this great flexible awesome CMF for more than 1 month. And all the basic of using elements now is on my hand without any problem. (Thank MODx and the community for great support, and MODx document, too).

Now I want go further on advanced development of MODx, which I can create extra or component for my certain purpose.

I'm getting stuck that the hierarchy of one component is really complex and so many thing coded by hand, including the setup of it.

I wonder if we can automate those processes before writing the main code, or can we just somehow like django or rails of ruby, use interactive style to create the object, model and relative-dir. Or at least can we using some IDEs to minimize the time and cost to develop extra in MODx?

And final question, are our great component really done by pure-hand coding?

It's really nice to have a good workflow on developing your own component. And hope you all might share it.
We clear the harden setup first, then many useful component should be packed for community using soon.

PS: sorry for my English, it's not my native language.

You might find this useful: http://bobsguides.com/mycomponent-tutorial.html

Thanks Bob for a long and informative post, but I have a question, where can I get the mycomponent script?

Look for the GetMyCompontent package in Package Manager (Download Extras).

It has to be installed in a weird way because it's both a package and a package builder. Installing GetMyComponent will create the MyComponent directory.

For simple components (not requiring a CMP) is there a reason not to use PackMan?

PackMan is generally fine for simple components. It won't do resources, menu items, system settings or custom Manager pages. You also can't interact with the user, run validators, or (I think) PHP resolver scripts during the install.

For a simple snippet or something similar, though, it's a great tool.