Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Seeing as it's getting closer to the kick-off, and everyone's gearing up for the next season, I'd thought I'd ask what everyone would like to see change as far as programming goes.

Here's mine:

• More memory
• Trig
• Use Eclipse right out of the box
• Open source dashboard, loader, & dev reader

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Hey, even as a an amatuer programmer, more speed! It would be nice to be able to to more intensive math without crashing the control code. And maybe hardware enabled floating point.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Only thing I want is a longer autonomous period and more sensors in the KOP. I like the current controllers though it would be nice if the compiler worked natively on Linux.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I really like the open source dashboard.

One can always use small, cheap Parallax or Microchip controllers for sensor input/computation, and not worry about using the main RC for that.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Version 3.9, I believe, of the mcc18 compiler has that, just include <math.h>


EDIT: I'm going to wish for more program space. I have a feeling the project I'm working on is going to take up a good amount between autonomous code, user-driven code, serial communication code, eeprom code, etc.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Its been a while since have though about FRC code but:

I doubt they are going to make any hardware changes but i am going to wish for a 16bit PIC anyway.

Access to at least 1 whole set of GPIO pins would be great


In addition, i think the base code could use some radical changes in the way of abstraction and modulalarity. We probably rewrote 60% of it last year.

More memory. FLASH, RAM. There are a number of pics that would be almost drop in replacements that would meet this criteria.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

What kind of trigonometric functions are you looking for?

-Kevin

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I'd like to see more of an event-driven framework, or at least something that doesn't look like autonomous mode is an afterthought.

And I'd really like to see the limit_mix() function die. :)

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Maybe there can be an implementation of a fixed-point set of basic trig functions that can be used. I know there are fixed-point approximations for some trig fucntions that work fairly well and don't require a large lookup table.

Matt

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

No more MPLAB.
Give us support for something else.... anything else... just no more MPLAB.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I've written some code that that will do fixed-point sin() and cos() using an EEPROM look-up table. One piece of code is executed once to create the table, another body of code is used to do fast look-up. Once I write the documentation, I'll release to code for folks to try out.

-Kevin

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Amen... MPLAB should die. It'd be nice if we could set up a project in Visual Studio to handle it

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Well, there is support for other things thanks to the work of others. Search for "using eclipse."

What I would like to see:

• Much more organized default code. Sure, you can take the stuff they give you and fix it, but then when they change a few things next year you have to start all over. One easy thing which would be especially nice for newer programmers would be just move all the utility include files into a separate directory. (Leave things that people commonly want to edit in the main area.)
• Stripped down version of the default code. A version of the default code which contained only the essential, basic structure would be handy for the more advanced teams. Continue to have a version with examples, but also make one which gets rid of things like the default mappings of the joysticks to the motors.
• USB programming capabilities. Yeah, I know that USB to serial converts usually work, but driver for the one I got caused horrible stability issues on my Windows box (not to mention took 10 minutes to download...) and it doesn't work at all with my Linux laptop. (As a side note: if anyone knows of one that works with Linux, tell me please!) I realize that the hardware isn't likely to change for a few more years, but is a wishlist. :)
• Going off of that, native support for Linux would be nice. Not a big priority thanks the work of many people on this forum, but what if the next version of the compiler breaks all their work?

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I had some similiar code last year but it got lost in a laptop crash. There's also a pretty good atan2 approximation (or at least it seemed to be) out there if you'd want to include that too. This is what I based my implementation on last year: http://www.dspguru.com/comp.dsp/tricks/alg/fxdatan2.htm

Matt

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Couldn't agree more.

I'd also like a USB programming port for the FRC. Not many laptops have serial ports anymore and in any case USB would be much faster. Oh yeah, we need to have the IFI loader have a large (infinate) buffer for the printfs.

I don't really care about the code FIRST gives us as producing code is my job. Other than that I want more code/variable space so that we can have better, more overly complicated autonomous modes.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I've seen several people make comments about the default code. If you don't like it, why don't you fix it and release it yourself? Nothing is stopping you from stripping it down and posting it, and maybe if you do so there's a chance IFI could pick it up and pass it on. I see no reason why the default code couldn't become a community-maintained thing. IFI could continue to provide their default stuff, but they could easily point people off to anyone else who's done work to enhance the default code.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

At this point, USB is becoming a necessity. When i bought my laptop over the summer, there was not a single computer in the store with a serial port. :( Requiring the user to buy extra hardware just to acheive baseline functionality from a product is not acceptable. As much as it pains me, i think serial ports are dying. That said, the USB port needs to be IN ADDITION to the serial port. The serial port on the RC is very useful and i have used it for many things othe than just programming and sending data to the computer.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I agree, but as I said, what happens when the add the camera support of last year? The creators know better than anyone what is needed and what is just demostration. If you're not the creator, you have to create your stripped down/reorganized code each year.

Perhaps we could compromise: release the default code a few weeks before kickoff, provided it doesn't reveal the game. Then, people would have time to create "preferable" versions of it.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

Ideally they could have a usb/serial setup with a the usb-serial adaptor chipset in the RC, so that you stull have a serial port for other things, or you can use the usb for programming. If it comes with a converter built in that is known to work, it would definitely be nice.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

I think you might just get what you're wishing for. I would look for something similar to the Vex programming 'module' setup where the 'Program' port is a TTL port, and depending on the cable you use you could have USB to TTL or RS232 to TTL.

Re: Coders' Wishlists for 2006
 

The VEX programing kit includes a USB to serial cable. Some one should try it with the FRC. If it doesn't work then Newegg has a converter for 20$ that I have yet to find any problems with.