Programming Build Times?
 

Hey I'm the main programmer on our team this year and I am not sure what language I should use.. I pretty much know the basics and the pros and cons between the three by reading other general threads but one thing I didn't quite see is the build times. So my question is, how fast does Netbeans, Windriver, and Labview build and deploy code?

Thanks

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

I'm not super educated on this. But if memory serves C and Java are very close as far as deployment time and LabView is remarkably slower.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

C++ rarely takes more than 30 seconds to build.
Not sure about Java or LV.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

Java also takes around 30 seconds to build and deploy.
I heard LV takes over an 1min.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

Thanks everyone. Your input is definetly going to help in the decision of what language to use.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

That's inaccurate. All 3 development environments can be installed as many times as needed for development of robot programs.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

Using labview, my team's computers often took more than 10 minutes to build, and a similar time period to deploy over a wired connection. (2 years ago, might have changed. but I doubt it) Last year, we used windriver, and build+deploy times were generally around one minute. on the same computer as the previous year, so its not like its a hardware difference. But labview takes all of 30 seconds to learn, so...

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

It did change. The FRC distribution of LabVIEW last year saw a significant improvement in build speed. It's still a turtle compared to C++, but it's fast enough that I don't have a problem recommending it.

Developing and debugging using the Run command is a lot faster than building a permanent executable, too. It greatly shortens the typical "edit-compile-download-debug" cycle.

Re: Programming Build Times?
 

C++ has a interesting compiler model that saves tons of time on most builds. In a nutshell, it only builds the .cpp files that have changed, so if you have a million lines of code, and change one file, it only needs to recompile the one file (which produces a .o file), then joins all the .o files together, which is much faster than the .o file compilation. The result: a speedy build 90% of the time. Unless you mush lots and lots and lots of code into one file, C++ is fast at compiling changes. Do be aware that the compiler is smart and figures out if dependencies of a file change most of the time, but occasionally the compiler does not recompile something that it should (.h file changes usually), leaving two incompatible .o files. Rebuilding solves this issue (when we have errors, most of the time rebuilding solves it), and our code last year (which had quite a few largeish files) would rebuild completely in about 30 seconds, and a regular build of our main file took 10 seconds tops. C/C++ compiling is an interesting subject.