Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
OK, I'll bite.
How did you know it was properly threaded?
And,
What is computer science, really?
|
Let me rephrase that, it was threaded well enough that I couldn't make the program run any faster due to limitations on how many frames a second I could grab from the camera.
I do not have a firm definition of computer science, as I do not have one of mechanical engineering either. But I'll give it a shot by combining various definitions I've heard from my professors and read over the years.
Computer Science is concerned with information in much the same sense that physics is concerned with energy; it is devoted to the representation, storage, manipulation and presentation of information. Computer scientists deal mostly with software and software systems, which includes theory, design, development, and application.
Let's dissect this in terms of FRC:
Representation: An interesting survey would be to see what percentage of frc programmers know how various data types are stored in the computer (and the rough range of them)
Storage: Beyond the occasional class, data structures such as queues and trees are not used in FRC to my understanding
Manipulation: Manipulating ints is as trivial as tightening a bolt, manipulating complex data structures is another thing
Presentation: Besides graphs and printing to console, how are teams presenting the data they have when they want to?
Theory: Do teams take to the calculate the complexity of their problem before they solve it?
Design: (Serious question): Do teams take to the whiteboard and draw out their algorithm, like
this famous one?
Development: There are many theories about software development so I won't touch this as to not anger people.
Application: Does it solve what it is suppose to? I feel in general this is the one area FRC meets.
Side note: For those who say why bother about efficiency if what is being done isn't complex to begin with. It's about learning and developing good habits. Programming habits are some of the hardest to break in my opinion and it takes self discipline to do things right, and not what is easy (Insert jfk speech). When you are constantly worried about optimization, you begin thinking like a computer scientist.