A potential new porter seeking some clarifications

[Arthur Pirika]

Hi all! I’m hoping to get into porting for FreeBSD, right now just focusing on one package, a plugin for bitlbee, however I’d like to extend my hand to maintain other ports in the future once I have more knowledge and practice with the system. 

Before I start, though, I just need some clarifications of things from the porter’s handbook. 

1. If I understand correctly, the version of the ports tree as fetched by portsnap isn’t the best for working on the tree. I should instead make another copy of the tree as an svn checkout? Distfiles, however, still go to /usr/ports/distfiles
2. Is it absolutely necessary to use poudriere before submitting a port? I’m still getting to grips with how it works, and if I need to get comfortable with it first, I’ll do so. 

Thanks!
Arthur