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Re: Java vs Labview
I'm not a neutral party, but you asked for opinions.
For your team?
I honestly don't know enough about your team to be able to make a recommendation. So, I'd say that you should look at the capabilities and ambitions of your students and mentors. It is quite easy to go through tutorials and program your robot in each of the languages and make your decision based on which language provided more successful moments. That is an intentionally vague description since success means something different for each team. In some cases it is a better robot, in some a better learning opportunity. Some want the easy road and some want a challenge.
Also, a bit of background.
What is LabVIEW? LabVIEW is a relatively popular domain specific language. It is generally not free and not targeted to general computing domains. People who program with LabVIEW don't normally consider their job title to be "LabVIEW Programmer". They are instead a physicist, a mechanical engineer, a test engineer, a robotics engineer, etc. This is true of many professionals who use Java as well.
FLL, by the way, has exclusively used a version of LabVIEW since the beginning. ROBOLAB, NXT, and EV3 all ship with a version of LV for young kids. ROBOLAB was actually an iconic language written in LV, but wasn't really a LabVIEW equivalent language. Additionally, WeDo the jrFLL language was designed for even younger kids. It is a cross between Scratch and LV and was written in LV.
My actual advice?
It isn't which tool you choose. What matters is how you decide to approach the task of programming the robot. I am thrilled when students truly understand how their mechanisms work and how their code plays an integral role. If only it could happen more often.
Greg McKaskle
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