Pre-modding basics questions

[chovynz]

I notice a lot of tut's and things out there that jump in on a certain area of modding.
While this is good and practical for specifics, it doesn't help people like me, who want to mod,
but don't know where to start. Much modding is done alone, or in a team of individuals.

So my question is this.

How does one go about:

• Setting up for modding
  

The actual modding itself is covered by lots of tutorials. What I'm asking for is pre-modding advice.

What are some good practices that dev's have found over the years?
What's the right way of modding Freelancer, from the beginning?
How do you set up your computer so that you can revert accidental changes?
How do you document what you are doing?
What are pot holes and landmines that experience has shown you?
What would you do differently, if you had to start over modding, knowing what you know now?
Is SVN a good thing to use, and how do you use it effectivly?

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.