Maya Plugin Development Primer

Here are few steps for developing plugins from scratch and not using the wizard, thanks to Rob Bateman for most of the info,

1. Create dll project
2. add a c++ file to it
3. change the output extension to mll
4. change project settings->C/C++->Code generation to Multi-threaded or Multi-threaded-debug
5. add NT_PLUGIN & REQUIRE_IOSTREAM to the C/C++ -> pre-processor defines in the project settings
6. set the library and include paths to the maya API (additional include directories, and additional lib directories (Foundation.lib, OpenMaya.lib)

in the cpp file:
//
#include <maya/MFnPlugin.h>
#include <maya/MPxCommand.h>
//
// link libs under VisualC++/Win32
#ifdef WIN32
#pragma comment(lib,"Foundation.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"OpenMaya.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"OpenMayaFx.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"OpenMayaUi.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"Image.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"OpenMayaAnim.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"OpenGl32.lib")
#pragma comment(lib,"glu32.lib")
#endif

#ifdef WIN32
#define EXPORT __declspec(dllexport)
#else
#define EXPORT
#endif
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
class helloCmd : public MPxCommand{
public:
virtual MStatus doIt(const MArgList&);
static void *creator(){
return new helloCmd;
}
};
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MStatus helloCmd::doIt(const MArgList& args){
MStatus status = MS::kSuccess;
MGlobal::displayInfo("Hello\n");
setResult("initialized");
return status;
}
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPORT MStatus initializePlugin( MObject obj )
{
MStatus status;
MFnPlugin pluginFn( obj, "Vishang Shah", "1.0");
status = pluginFn.registerCommand("helloCmd",helloCmd::creator);
if(!status)
  status.perror("registerCommand Failed");
return status;
}
EXPORT MStatus uninitializePlugin( MObject obj)
{
MFnPlugin pluginFn( obj );
MStatus status;
status = pluginFn.deregisterCommand("helloCmd");
if(!status)
  status.perror("deregister failed");
return status;
}
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------