Programmers Guild?
 

It seems that programmers are the most underappreciated members of a team. Without us there would only be a robotic beauty contest.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Amen to that.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Great minds think alike.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ogrammer+guild

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Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Good for you guys, but it takes every team to make the robot, we share the glory. I'm on mechanical, and without us, there wouldn't even be a robot, we also do the most work since we got to cut the metal and stuff, but programming and electrical are important too, otherwise, the robot wouldn't even move, or do anything. All teams are important, so quit whining, and get to work.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

I agree,I pretty much do it all, although I do less programming than I'd like to... And they are all about equally difficult , Animation is frustrating (when you ARE the max team), Machining gets you dirty, and programming... well programing a basic robot is pretty easy... Especially with the stuff they give you.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

oh... and I belive that the most under-appreciated sub team is the animation :D

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Yea, you're probably right, I was on animation for a while, got frustrated, and went back to mechanical. I can do that kind of stuff a little well, but I can't really come up with stuff very well, like they wanted me to. So now I just build the robot, because I can't really do anything else.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

The robot is built by all the teams in 5 weeks. It only takes half a second, and one programming mistake to cause it to fly at full speed into a wall. In the process, showing how well it was built!

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Yes, any mistake, in building, programming, or electrical will make it hard for the robot. Programming will, as you said, send it into a wall. Building might make it illegal by the refs, or make it fall apart or something. Electrical is about the same as programming. But for awards, the other teams, like publishing, animation, and the like, play a fairly important roll too, along with showing off the robot during the season.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

As it only takes one loose bolt to send the robot careening into the driver station and showing us how well the drivers are trained... I see your point, but we could place responsibility on any sub-team if we wanted too :D I know I've had enough practice

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Don't know what your team is like but programmers unappreciated? You must not have a shortage of programmers, never seen people in my team call programming easy. This thread should be deleted, it is turning hostile rather fast, and it is unnessecary...

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

programming is easy?

Then you have set your goals too low.
Of course its easy to type the following:
pwm01=p1_y;
pwm02=p2_y;

However, its also easy to hot-glue a wheel to a motor and hold two wires to it.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

I'm sure that many people think that their sub-team does the most (and/or most important) work. It is only when everyone on the whole FIRST team is willing to put in "the most work", whatever it takes, that you are able to get a great robot in six weeks. I'm sure that there are many great contributions to the team that you have made, and I respect that. But I guarentee you there are programmers out there who put in at least as much time and effort, and come out with some awsome results.

I personally work on the mechanical side of the robot, but it is very important to recognize everyone's contributions.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Careful.

When you enter the professional world you are employed (given a paycheck) to be part of a team, and your team is expected to achieve goals. It takes effort by all team members to achieve those goals and this makes all team members valuable and important, regardless of whether they are software engineers, hardware engineers, qa, documentation, marketing, customer support, managers, administrative assistants, etc.

Or even the FIRST team member who orders the pizza when the team is working late.

Keith Watson
Lead Software Engineer
20 years experience on large scale applications, everything from $20,000 software up to $40,000,000 projects including hardware and software

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

I created this thread for the idea of making a much simpler way of sharing ideas amongst programmers, learning different types of programming, and helping the newbs learn. This isn't just to complain about the underappreication of the programmers. I should have explained myself before I went on a initial tangent like I did.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Pfft, Freshmen in high school never get appreciated :P

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

:p

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

Hmmm.. you wouldn't have thought that from the beginning... But I'm not so sure. If you need more appreciation than a perfectly running autonomous...

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

I'm sorry for going off like I did, I probably should have just left it alone, but I just don't really like seeing people start a thread, with replys that are the same, that just complains about how their sub team is the most under appreciated. It kind of gets under my skin, you know? It's just that I don't see people complaining a lot, and I usually like to just speak my mind about most stuff. I'm sorry if i seemed rude or anything to anyone, it was just a misunderstanding, and I did just kind of go off there. Again, sorry for intruding on programming space, and for going off like I did.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

I, as a programmer am gonna have to disagree with this point. I joined the team in out second year and we had about 7 people. Now that 7 has grown to about 22. The entire team works together as a whole and everything that is done is appreciated by every different aspect of the team. First is all about finding it in yourself to not just excel as a person but as a member of a team. The mechanical and electrical work just as hard as us programmers and everyone needs to understand that. We dont deserve special treatment because we make the brain work because without a functioning bod the brain is useless.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

The trick to managing the different teams is quite often, you have fewer programmers than any other team has people. It's much harder to understand major changes in programming than it does for mechanical (electrical gets hard too though). Programmers are necessary just as each group is necessary. Of course, they also have more responsibility in a sense than others. Mechanical can test most of their parts at any time. electrical much the same. Programmers need the entire bot put together to fully test. Testing in parts can work, but only so often...

Probably a bit pompous, being a programmer. 90% of FIRST is teamwork though.

Re: Programmers Guild?
 

That is until we programmers design simulations to test our bots before they're constructed.

Our programmers on our team play the Jack of All Trades role on the robot construction and design, and then tucker down to sleepless nights to get the code working for our designs.

Most of our mentors on our team are also programmers, so no programmer on our team feels unappreciated or neglected being that we are the ones getting all the attention on the team.

Interestingly, as well as getting attention, it's the programmers on our team that are expected to be social, giving presentations and schmoozing with sponsors to demonstrate our knowledge, even though most of us are more comfortable in front of a monitor in a dark room for 18 hrs a day than even having a simple conversation with another person. :p