Date Views development guide?

hey there,

I'm studying Views in order to build a module that will use date parts as contextual filters.

with that in mind, I need to know how can I pull a list of date fields (both core and custom date fields) that I can manipulate in simple ways (at first YYYY, MM, DD, but later on maybe weeks within a month or suggestions from users).

is there any tutorial on that? paid solutions (video courses, books etc.) also welcome.

thanks in advance,
Luciano