FIRST Programming Tutorial

[deltacoder1020]

I am currently in the process of writing a programming tutorial aimed at FIRST Robots. I've completed the first couple of sections on basic programming - you can view those sections here:

http://www.thedevelopersalliance.com/~delta/FirstProgramming.pdf (~73kb)

Eventually, I hope to go all the way from beginning programming to useful algorithms and optimization, and then possibly to EEPROM.

Any feedback would be great.

[tml240]

hey thx for the tutorial! This can certainly help some of the programmers in our team! When are you planning to release more of these?

[deltacoder1020]

I'm probably going to be working on this every night (it's something to do until the drivebase is finished ;)), so chances are you'll be seeing updates fairly quickly. Eventually, I'll probably upload this to the whitepapers section, but until it's done, it'll stay on my server (easier to update).

[Astronouth7303]

Is it based on (or use stuff from) the CD?

[deltacoder1020]

not really - so far, almost all of the stuff is off the top of my head about the C language. then again, some of the stuff on the CD is fairly general as well, so there may be some overlap, but I didn't "get" it from the CD, if that's what you're asking.

[Astronouth7303]

Do you have any previews/outlines/betas yet? This my first big use of C, so I'd like to look over something

[IMDWalrus]

Do you have any previews/outlines/betas yet? This my first big use of C, so I'd like to look over something
If you can get it, the book "The C Programming Language" is quite possibly the single best resource out there. It was written by the two men who created the language, and it seems to be very comprehensive.

The first edition was written in 1978, but it's still being published (possibly in a second edition...I can't recall). I was extremely lucky and found the book for seventy cents at a used book store...and from what I've seen, it was worth every penny. Too bad I haven't had time to read very much of it... :)

[deltacoder1020]

Do you have any previews/outlines/betas yet? This my first big use of C, so I'd like to look over something

As I mentioned in my first post, you can get whatever the most up-to-date version is here (I will be updating it every time I finish a new section or two):
http://www.thedevelopersalliance.com/~delta/FirstProgramming.pdf

--edit-- a small update, added info on do while, switch, continue, and break statements.

[Kevin Watson]

If you can get it, the book "The C Programming Language" is quite possibly the single best resource out there. It was written by the two men who created the language, and it seems to be very comprehensive.Yes, Kernighan & Ritchie (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131103628/qid=1075439222) (seasoned programmers just call it "K and R") is the reference for the language, but just as you wouldn't want to learn to speak French using a French dictionary, I wouldn't bother trying to learn C with this book because it's more of a C dictionary. If you buy this book (and you should if you're serious about learning C), make sure you get the second edition, which covers ANSI standard C.

-Kevin

[deltacoder1020]

another update, this one adding data types, mathematical operations, and arrays, as well as some cosmetic changes including a table of contents.

http://www.thedevelopersalliance.com/~delta/FIRSTProgramming.pdf (~126kb)

[Guest]

Some corrections:

1. On the PIC microcontroller that FIRST uses, double is an alias for float (they're the same exact thing, both 32 bit).

2. pg. 14 - c= (char)counter - will simply cause an overflow to "wrap" around, not cause an error (I think)

3. What about pointers? I think they're important enough to be included (I included them in my guide (http://nrg.chaosnet.org/resource/programming/advguide.PDF) - plug ;) ).

[deltacoder1020]

Some corrections:

1. On the PIC microcontroller that FIRST uses, double is an alias for float (they're the same exact thing, both 32 bit).

2. pg. 14 - c= (char)counter - will simply cause an overflow to "wrap" around, not cause an error (I think)

3. What about pointers? I think they're important enough to be included (I included them in my guide (http://nrg.chaosnet.org/resource/programming/advguide.PDF) - plug ;) ).

1. thanks for the tip, i'll add a note to that effect (but i do want people to know that they're different in normal C... hopefully they can take away some real-world programming skill too :))

2. i'll test it to double-check, but chances are it would cause an overflow error (and my view of the platform will go down if it doesn't)

3. of course they're important - remember that I'm not done with it yet - I was actually planning to do pointers next, and probably macros after that, and I'll throw in variable scope and lifetime somewhere in there.

[deltacoder1020]

another small update, as well as some corrections/clarifications.