On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Mike Purvis
<mpurvis@clearpathrobotics.com> wrote:
> Firstly, when I'm setting out to build a new node, it seems it needs to have
> a package. Does it need to have a stack too? Or can I just roscreate-pkg,
> and then put my python scripts in the src directory?

A package is sufficient.

> Secondly, I tried to create my new package outside of $ROS_ROOT--- in a
> directory that's a peer to ros and ros-tutorials. However, when I do this,
> none of the rosbash tools can find it. Do I need to put my stuff inside of
> $ROS_ROOT, or do I need to add to PATH and PYTHONPATH. If so, should I be
> doing this by editing the ros setup.sh, or by creating my own?

You need to update your ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. The python path is
automatically taken care of if you setup your <depend> tags correctly
in your packages' manifest.xml (and call
roslib.load_manifest('mypackage'))