to just get the rotory wheel working, my "guess" is a minimum of a few hours with use of the developer doc, PEP2 docs and the search engine here.

However, if you do the rotory wheel you might as well configure your whole system while saving money and making good use of your spare time.

My other "guess" is once you dig in, you will get bit hard by the Pronto remote bug and will be heads down in customizing your remote, buying extenders, drinking lots of coffee, up late at night, dreaming about JavaScript etc. :)