Thread: RoboRio
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Unread 29-04-2014, 12:04
NotInControl NotInControl is offline
Controls Engineer
AKA: Kevin
FRC #2168 (Aluminum Falcons)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Groton, CT
Posts: 261
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Re: RoboRio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pratik341 View Post
I also heard that with this new control system, the Java IDE is changing from Netbeans to Eclipse. Can anyone confirm this?
For Alpha Testing, the WPI Library plugins were developed for Eclipse. I would assume WPI will continue to follow suite and provide the eclipse plugin for eclipse coming the 2015 Season.

I can not confirm 100% at the moment that WPI plans to ditch netbeans altogether for Java. In 2012, they provided both Eclipse and Netbean plug-ins. But did not provide Eclipse plug-ins for 2013 or 2014.

What I can confirm is that for C++: WPI is moving from Windriver to Eclipse (which is free).

However, even if WPI only provides the official plugin for Eclipse, it is not impossible to set up Netbeans to develop for the RoboRio Arm processor and deploy on your own.

For Java this is easy, because all you need to do is add the WPI Library to your linker in netbeans. Since Java compiles to byte-code it is platform independant and no cross-compilation is necessary.

For C++: It is not impossible to set-up netbeans to cross-compile for the Arm Processor. The cross-compiler (g++) used on eclipse can be used in netbeans to provide an Arm Executable.

After the binary is built for either language, all you need to do then is transfer the binary to the device, and SSH into the RoboRio to run the program. This is essentially what the "Deploy" Ant script provides, and their is no reason why you just can't reuse the Ant Script to do this for you.

Currently for Java, netbeans is the supported IDE, however, I have my entire team setup using eclipse, we don't use netbeans for anything. We have been using Java and Eclipse for the last 3 seasons for FRC. I prefer to set up the build on our own, even if WPI provided us with an eclipse plug-in because I can run my own customizable build script. For example, after my build script creates the Jar File and transfers it to the cRIO, it then runs through my Java Code and generates a HTML version of the Javadoc for the code we wrote for the Robot - which is very handy. This is all functionality anyone can have.

I personally like eclipse, but for those that want to still use Netbeans, there will always be a way to make it work with some limitation, even if it is not fully supported by WPI.

In the past, I have provided turotials for teams to setup eclipse for Java development on FRC. Before the Fall, I will make sure to provide a video tutorial of how to setup netbeans for the RoboRio development.

At the end of the day, you are free to use any IDE you like, as long as you can link to the WPI provided libraries and are comfortable SSH'ing into the linux device on your own.

Regards,
Kevin
__________________
Controls Engineer, Team 2168 - The Aluminum Falcons
[2016 Season] - World Championship Controls Award, District Controls Award, 3rd BlueBanner
-World Championship- #45 seed in Quals, World Championship Innovation in Controls Award - Curie
-NE Championship- #26 seed in Quals, winner(195,125,2168)
[2015 Season] - NE Championship Controls Award, 2nd Blue Banner
-NE Championship- #26 seed in Quals, NE Championship Innovation in Controls Award
-MA District Event- #17 seed in Quals, Winner(2168,3718,3146)
[2014 Season] - NE Championship Controls Award & Semi-finalists, District Controls Award, Creativity Award, & Finalists
-NE Championship- #36 seed in Quals, SemiFinalist(228,2168,3525), NE Championship Innovation in Controls Award
-RI District Event- #7 seed in Quals, Finalist(1519,2168,5163), Innovation in Controls Award
-Groton District Event- #9 seed in Quals, QuarterFinalist(2168, 125, 5112), Creativity Award
[2013 Season] - WPI Regional Winner - 1st Blue Banner

Last edited by NotInControl : 29-04-2014 at 12:20.