Quote:
Originally Posted by howellrobotics
Hello,
We are a newer FRC team (Ultimate Ascent was our first season) and we are currently trying to decide what programming language to use for next season, so that we can begin training students. We used LabVIEW last year and had some issues with it, although these were likely due to our being rookies, and are considering changing to C++ or Java. We have access to good resources for all three languages, so mentorship is not a problem. What languages do your teams teams use and why? Pros & cons? Any and all advice or input would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Howell High School FIRST Robotics
The S.C.O.T.S. Bots - Team 4776
"Service, Character, Opportunity, Teamwork, Spirit"
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We at Innovators Robotics use C++ on grounds of it being "closer to the metal" without the overhead of Java, and because it was what the original programming team in 2010 knew to use. Between C++ and Java, though, if overhead isn't something you care about, it's often a wash. Plenty of support from CD and other programmers in both. Arguably easier to get new kids in if using Java, though it's still not *that* big of a gap.
I might also recommend RobotPy and the Lua interpretter + WPILib that are floating around CD. The interpretters run as C/C++ modules, therefore being legal to run on the cRIOs, and the ease of writing either of those languages is great (I know both extensively from working on web development projects in Python and working with tons of open source in Lua, and I have to admit they're in my "top favorite" list for languages). Very fast to write, and very fast to teach newbies. Also not sitting through compile times for your one-liner changes would be a nice sanity item
(If I recall RobotPy will auto-reload code when a new version is pushed over the FTP link, meaning you have near-instant response from hitting Save to seeing the outcome).