Tiling window manager plugin(?) for gnome-shell

[Tim Cuthbertson <tim gfxmonk net>]

Hi all,

I was inspired by the fedora test day to try out gnome shell again. I
must say, it's looking very nice.

I am a fan of tiling window managers, but want to use one that is
 - friendlier
 - less rigid
 - shiny!

I currently use xmonad, but it's definitely lacking in the shiny and
not-so-rigid departments, and apparently that won't be an option with
gnome 3 anyway (since it has to run under mutter). Since I might well
have to change window managers anyway if I want to use gnome3, I
thought now might be an excellent time to write my ideal window
manager. I've got a brief outline here of the system I want to have /
implement:

http://gfxmonk.net/2011/02/06/my-ideal-window-manager.html

so I'm mostly wondering if you kind folk could educate me as to how it
could be done. My main questions:
 - can it be done in javascript, as a gnome-shell plugin?
 - if not, how about a hybrid JS / C plugin (one plugin each for
mutter and gnome-shell?)
 - failing that, can it be done as a mutter plugin? (this is my least
favourite option)

I am reasonably adept at hacking JS. I have done a bunch of C, but
would rather not have to do too much of that. I have built gnome-shell
from source (thanks for making that so easy), and found the
js/windowManager.js file of interest. If I were to implement some sort
of tiling window manager, would it be best to
 - replace this file
 - monkey patch it
 - add my own version of it, and tell gnome-shell to use it instead of
the existing one

If you know of similar efforts, or tutoriales / articles that might
help me get started, could you please mention them here? I've googled,
but couldn't find much info aside from discussion of the
aero-snap-like features already in the shell.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide :)
 - Tim Cuthbertson.