[mdrouillard]

This thread certainly resonated with me.
As a mentor , we participated in the beta test for the 2012 software, playing with kinect and all things F.I.R.S.T. prior to the build season. In previous years the team used labview, and while this was my first year as a programming mentor for the students, we beta tested the environment in C++. We fully intended to build our 2012 robot using C++. We played with the circle vision code and extended our 2010 robot to track circles and controlled with kinect, all in C++. However, when the 2012 game was released we noticed that the square target sample code was released for labview but not for C++. Since the build season is so short, we elected to use labview since it allowed us to get our base code up quickly. BTW, as the mentor, I did not understand labview until the build season, but I am pleased we stayed with labview for this season. We are now in the off season working to convert our 2012 robot into C++ so that we can again next year make the informed decision of which path to take. The younger students are mixed on the matter, having learned labview and with our senior labview programmer graduating this year, we have an opportunity to start again. Mixed because as the original post suggested, they also would like to learn a language that may help them in later studies while recognizing that labview can prove to get a working robot going faster.