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Unread 12-05-2011, 10:14
jonboy jonboy is offline
Engineer/Mentor
FRC #0885 (The Green Team)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Rookie Year: 2003
Location: Tunbridge, Vermont
Posts: 46
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Re: Who to Choosing Between programming language?

There are many phases of software development that are language independent as it applies to FIRST robots. The requirement definition of functions and interfaces applies to all languages. Also the top level design, algorithms and logic tasks apply to all languages. Neither SW coding nor language for most typical SW development projects are the biggest problem. The FIRST software code must interface in real time with the physical world of the FIRST robot with its various sensors and actuators. This is quite a challenge for the code which most SW developers usually don’t have to deal with. These physical items are not familiar to most FIRST participants especially the students. Understanding how these physical items respond is important to developing good code to control the robot.

What I like about LV is the ability to easily make front panels with lots of graphical items to display various parameters simultaneously so that everyone can observe what is happening in real-time. There is also the ability to monitor selected data flows in the code. This is a big deal when you are trying to characterize the sensors and actuators and when you are debugging and tuning the robot. With the wireless interface and the graphics it sure beats the old tethered and printf debugging of years past. There are lots NI tutorials and documentation to get up to speed. LV tech support on the phone is both responsive and expert. FRCMastery video tutorials are also an excellent source for learning FIRST LV code.
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... jon