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-   -   why blame the programmers?? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84922)

Racer26 09-04-2010 09:42

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
The one I always find happens with me, is the robot code works flawlessly for 4 or 5 matches, then spontaneously STOPS working properly. I get told to check the code, and my response is invariably "code doesn't change on its own, if it worked before, then one of its inputs has changed, or ceased functioning" Its often that an encoder has died, or something along those lines.

gvarndell 09-04-2010 10:55

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by krudeboy51 (Post 947546)
im wondering, if anything goes wrong with the robot why blame the programmers??(any suggestions, comments or ideas??)
:confused:

If you intend to become an embedded systems software developer, then you either get really good at proving it's not the software or you're doomed to forever be a whipping post for the hardware folks. :o
Defensive coding and stellar debugging skills will prevent wasting years of your career in the finger pointing game and will make you quite valuable to boot.

Racer26 09-04-2010 14:08

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by gvarndell (Post 950747)
If you intend to become an embedded systems software developer, then you either get really good at proving it's not the software or you're doomed to forever be a whipping post for the hardware folks. :o
Defensive coding and stellar debugging skills will prevent wasting years of your career in the finger pointing game and will make you quite valuable to boot.

QFT. I graduated my FRC team, went on to get a Bachelor of IT, and now work for a company doing PC and embedded software. I regularly get blamed when it breaks.

cheesepuffgd 09-05-2010 23:28

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

At least on my team, it's becuase when the programmers are testing the drive, they usually smash the robot into a wall at least 5 times.
that was one time!!!!

TStark115 20-01-2011 16:05

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
It's not aways their fault and most of the time it's not.

billbo911 20-01-2011 16:47

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Why? Because as part of the mechanical team, we can't possibly blame ourselves.

dag0620 20-01-2011 17:33

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Ohhh I was dreading the comeback of this thread!

I've come to the conclusion, it's the age old story, and every team has it, and no-one will ever win it.

But I will admit, as a programmer, we mostly do the bidding of the Design and Mech Teams. I think outside of the Control Board and Autonomous, we have no creative control.

One day the code will be written first, and then a robot built around it :P

davidalln 20-01-2011 18:07

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Y. (Post 950573)
from a mentors point of view:

(WARNING...im a mechanical type of guy)

we usually hated on electrical...until we found out they could put pretty lights that flash on our robot...so now programmers are to blame for all things.

Your programmer made those pretty light pulsate over time during the match. Continue blaming electrical.

PAR_WIG1350 20-01-2011 19:42

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidalln (Post 1004494)
Your programmer made those pretty light pulsate over time during the match. Continue blaming electrical.

Unless a 555 was involved. But honestly, I find that problems are evenly distributed throughout the robot. However, Magic smoke, the smell of melting stuff, a chain that has come off its sprocket, and binding gears are really obvious. A sign error, or a missing increment/decrement operator, on the other hand, can be difficult to track down, and those are just simple, easily solved problems. more complex errors, such as accidentally causing a function to fail to execute by making the conditions it would normally execute under impossible (such as
Code:

void myfunction (void)
int main()
{
    int nvar=0;
    if nvar>1
    { 
        myfunction ();
        nvar=0;
      }
      else
      {
      }
      //...
}

and elsewhere you had a function in which an error increments nvar by 1 such that every 2nd error triggers myfunction, but you removed that section of the code, now whatever crucial task myfunction does to fix the error never occurs, and the errors just continue on to oblivion. But just by looking at the code, it would be hard to diagnose that.

Thus, the programmer's aren't blamed more often, they just have to do more work to find the problem before thy can even begin to fix it, thus it seems like they are always getting asked to fix things, since they are always working.

davidthefat 20-01-2011 20:05

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Honestly, it only takes one integer or one symbol to make your robot go hay wire. But that only takes a second to fix. If it is mechanical failure, it is harder to fix. So people are being optimistic and blaming the one that is easier to fix. That is what I have learned from my experiences in the club.

Joe G. 20-01-2011 20:13

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
People blame what they don't understand.

-Mechanical..although it takes time to master it, most people understand at least the very basics.

-Electrical..a little more mysterious, but still, most people have some basic grasp.

-Software..people seem to either get it, or think of it as black-magic that goes on deep within the cRIO.

-As can be seen through the Salem witch trials and other historical examples, people like to take the easy way out and blame black magic for their problems :p

plnyyanks 20-01-2011 20:23

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
you don't. it's not their fault. it's mechanical's fault.

MAldridge 20-01-2011 20:36

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
The programers usually get blamed for several reasons:
  • There's only one programmer on the team
  • Not even the mentors understand what goes on in the programers head
  • The programer codes the robot as if they're driving

I remember on specific instance during breakaway that our ball magnet was causing balls to be sucked under the robot. When the drive asked me how to stop the motor on the ball magnet (I was the spotter) I quickly told him to toggle the left throttle and hold buttons 4, 5, 6, and 12 for at least one second. It made sense to me at the time I programed it!

demosthenes2k8 20-01-2011 20:43

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MAldridge (Post 1004605)
I remember on specific instance during breakaway that our ball magnet was causing balls to be sucked under the robot. When the drive asked me how to stop the motor on the ball magnet (I was the spotter) I quickly told him to toggle the left throttle and hold buttons 4, 5, 6, and 12 for at least one second. It made sense to me at the time I programed it!

OK, this is amazing. We plan on having our Drive team be all software this year, so we can be like "BAM! This happened." and the pit crew can't protest.

MagiChau 20-01-2011 21:22

Re: why blame the programmers??
 
Over here we like to keep trying to improve our code. It sometimes involved changing what button did what.

An alumni last year placed a spray painted plate of aluminum on the driver station and had scratched in an operations manual. One of its directions was to ask programmers how we had set up the controls this time.

This year we should have enough programmers so there will always be someone available to explain to someone else on the team what we did.

Those mechanical guys blaming programming, they are just playing hard to get. They know they love how we type in stuff and then stuff happens, or break.


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