Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

Exactly. If you do this challenge you SHOULD be preparing before build season starts. That way you are ready when the time comes. Also, it helps if the programming team starts working before the robot is done so that they don't have to do everything in 2 weeks or less.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

We actually practice on the old robots in the fall, reprogramming them thru all the parts, simple stuff to more complex sensors/buttons/motors combinations.

During the first week of build, we all set a rough idea of what is needed on paper, with the electronics mentor doling out port numbers etc. The programmers usually got ahead of the prototype robot (or the multitude of pre-prototype mock-ups) with only tweaking of code (if we're lucky) or rewriting code (if the manufacturing group changed the design).

Yeah, that's what turned me off to COBOL, way back when, to my 13-year-old fingers, the typing, typing, typing of code, though I never actually did much coding. Though the card punch units the high school had made a pretty neat and satisfactory hole-punch sound. Robo-COBOL is, of course, much easier. ;)

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

COBOL taught me how to spell Environment correctly :)

Man that brings back memories

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

Ok Gramps...



But seriously, I like the idea of teaching new technologies and skills. I do not like the idea of making this stuff harder than it already is.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

IBM did have 370's on a computer card Micro 370 which would fit on a robot today! On the other hand, getting a punch card reader that size will be a problem :rolleyes:

Thanks for the COBOL laugh, COBOL was my second language after Fortran. For awhile I worked at place that had Object Oriented COBOL, it was pretty cool.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

So I guess APL is totally out of the question, huh?

Seriously, APL should be taught first, then when they are totally lost, tell them you'll give them something simpler, like C. I'm sure there's a Sheldon Cooper quote in there somewhere.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

I have found that nothing makes a programmer learn the value of a QWERTY keyboard faster than a wire-wrap tool:
http://www.homebrewcpu.com/Pictures/..._wrap_side.jpg

For those studying the electronics they'll never forget the real value of a netlist after that.

Extra points if you can wire-wrap a whole cRIO from CMOS chips.

No seriously, though, part of the pain of building these robots at all is that often times the core concepts and subtle core things you must do to get anything done is still sometimes a matter of imagination. Let alone twisting that into something unique and reliably functional.

One should not loose sight of what it was like to learn when first you had to build the computer. Disputes about the 'best' language for something tend to start to look like a luxury.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

Going to guess that less than 50 of us know what that is or have used one.

And CMOS? Really TTL isn't good enough for you?

Finally, one of my early jobs at the University was to help maintain the computer billing system that was written in APL. Clearly a write once read never language.

My programming language arc is Fortran, COBOL, MAD, ALGOL (and variants like ESPOL), APL, TECO (ask anyone, its a programming language wrapped in an editor), Assembler (oh PDP8 Assembler how I loved thee) , BASIC (and variants like Visual Basic), Pascal, C and (C++), Lisp, AWK, ICON, Forth, XLISP, TADS, Bob, Logo, Pilot, Smalltalk, TCL, Java, Javascript, Python, Ruby, Processing, Labview and Lua.

I'm working on English, hope to master that soon.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

I can help with that I still have and use them.

I value my 74181 collection. Harder to get these days.

* PRESS PLAY ON TAPE *

No PHP, Perl, MegaBASIC, QuickBASIC, BASICA, GWBASIC, F#, Ada, DarkBASIC, GLBASIC, FreeBASIC, RCL, PureBASIC, Commodore BASIC, Delphi (Object Pascal), SED, PolyFORTH, pBASIC, SPIN and XCore C/C++?

Come on you're acoustic coupling it in at what like 300 baud?
:D

At some point it does start to get down to this....yes we can make it do that....but it might be wise to not ask how unless you are prepared to absorb way too much information.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

No one can master English. Not even computers understand normal
English, hence the fact that there are over 100 programming languages :ahh: .

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

I have an alternative challenge... get really good at one language, aim to develop the best software in FRC using the knowledge of the language you've built up over the years, and leave as an expert in that language.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

So two points: I know of, and work with English Masters. They take the random word strings I type, pass it through the noun/verb rules, add the correct other parts (is a participle really a thing?), add punctuation and it's good to go. The human brain is better than the computer programs of the day so it still rules. I've gotten documents back that look like a brace of chickens were slaughtered because of all the red pen marks, but I'm a better writer because of that. I'm not proud, important stuff I write gets adult English review. CD posts, not so much review.

"Over 100 programming languages" is a laugh. There are over 100 "mainstream languages", I'd guess there are over 5000 other languages out there. I've written two "little languages" that were designed as domain based languages". I'm not alone, so I'll take a bet that 5000 languages is the low water mark. Surf github, look for Java clones, Javascript clones, lisp (of all flavors) clones, etc. Domain based languages rock, some day there will be an amazing robot domain language we will all use.

Love these language conversations, but at the end of the day pick one that fits best and you can program best. I use AWK for "dig into files to rip data apart". I use R to rip that data apart into stats and reports. I use C to make robots dance and I use Lua as my new flirty programming friend.

And I use English to document the stuff I write, so others can follow it if I'm not there.

Re: The One-language-per-year Challenge
 

Here's a blast from the past in relating to domain-specific languages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%2...ng_language%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Logo

I got a charming letter from Lego when I was younger suggesting that their lawyers would like to get to 'know me' because I sort of 'adjusted' the Lego control box for the Apple IIGS to have sensors like 'The Clapper'.

Doesn't it sound like a 'great' idea to have a Lego hydraulic (yes not pneumatic) system operating a pair of really sharp sissors also open and closed by Legos? I thought so....

If that sounds potentially....oh dangerous...at that particular competition a student arrived with a circular saw on a large Uncle Sam dressed mannequin on an FRC sized (this was long before FIRST) rolling platform. It wasn't anything to be concerned about the saw was only 6' off the floor with the guard open rolling on a robot plugged into the wall. I did not find it all a bit creepy the 'head' of Uncle Sam was basically circular saw.