[Kris Verdeyen]

Con: It makes the rules inconsistent

The obvious new question brought up by the ruling is, "Can we update the software on our practice robot between the FIW and the competition?"

The simple answer, suggested by the (flawed) ruling issued by the FIRST Q/A team, is, "Yes, Of course! It's a practice robot, change all the code you want!"

But, as we all know, to every complicated problem is a simple answer... that's wrong.

Let's start with two assumptions:
1)If you change the software on your practice robot, muddle around with variables and subroutines and whatnot, you're doing software development.
2)If you have two identical platforms, and you're developing software for one, you're developing software for the other.

Here's where it gets tricky. If my driver is practicing, he's evaluating the robot the whole time. He'll say to my software guys, "you know, the gain on this arm motion is a little too high, let's see if we can fix it." The software guys, being the rule-following good FIRST citizens that they are, will tell the driver that they are not allowed to make changes, even to the practice robot code, but they'll note his request, and change it at the competition.

My contention is that there is not a whit of difference between noting that a change like that has to be made, and making the change. Software development is not just coding, and it's as much finding out what doesn't work as it is finding out what does. This ruling completely ignores that fact.

If you practice after the FIW, and the driver so much as opens his mouth to complain about how the robot handles, he's doing software development.