Developing a C-based UDF

Hi all, I'm developing a C-based user defined function at the moment (actually porting an existing Postgres extension) and I was wondering what kinds of tools I should use for this and how I should actually do the development. At the moment I'm using a simple text editor to edit the relevant files (i.e. the c and mal files) and then completely re-compile MonetDB to test my changes. I'm not entirely happy about this workflow though, so is there an easier way? Perhaps with Visual Studio (I'm on Windows7) ? How do the core developers work on MonetDB? Also, if I run into any problems or have any questions, is this the right mailing list or should I use the developers mailing list? Best regards, Dennis