On 8 May 2012 we presented a one-day course on server functions at NASA's Langely Research Center in Newport New, VA. The course covered how server functions work and how to write them. The class was built around a virtual machine running openSUSE Linux 12.1 that uses Vmware Fusion, Workstation or Player. With the virtual machine you get a complete development environment including Eclipse and a pre-compiled copy of Hyrax 1.8.2 - all ready to run. Included in the slide sets used for the class is considerable background material on OPeNDAP and Hyrax, so if you're interested in some hands-on exposure to the server in broad terms, this will be a valuable resource - in that case it contains about 3 hours of lecture and tutorial material.
At the same workshop/class, we also presented a white paper on client development which many people will find useful. If you want to write your own OPeNDAP client using C++ or Java, this is will be a huge help and you'll see how easy it can be to take an existing client and modify it to suite your needs.