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Unread 19-09-2008, 22:10
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Re: Nearly Officially Official: cRIO Control System To Be Reused

Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamHeard View Post
If all goes well? This is clearly PR BS. How could they even possibly make a system that isn't reusable? And as far as I remember, the IFI system was always "reusable", it'd be almost impossible for it to not be.
Looking at this page, and going somewhat off of my memory, it looks like there were three generations of the IFI controllers, each non-compatible with the previous one. And something that has to be remembered is that FIRST is not designing these controllers in-house, but rather someone(read: NI) is taking existing hardware, and customizing it to some degree for FIRST to use. Because of this, FIRST may have little to no say in some aspects of the design that would warrant a new system in the event of a change to the system's design. After all, not everything can be handled in software...

Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamHeard View Post
The sugarcoating and PR BS really ruin Bill's place for me. At first, I had hopes it would be a place where FIRST might actually communicate to teams without BS, and maybe possibly listen. This is clearly not the case, it's just a new face.
Ignoring my position for a moment, I would have to disagree with you on this. I think the important thing to keep in mind in this case is who is the "new face" who is communicating this information. Bill is the Program Director for the entire FRC program. For his own sanity, I can almost guarantee that he does not follow every minute detail of every part of the program. I'm pretty sure that because of his position, he is involved with the implemention of the new control system on only a basic level, leaving the Engineering group, the project team at NI, and everyone else involved with the '09 controls to work out the details. One of those details may end up being that future component X will not be compatible with the generation of cRIO teams will be getting for '09. In the context of the most recent blog post, I would say that
"if all goes well" should be translated as, "this is our plan now, but changes we make 2,5,or 10 years down the road may require us to change our plan."

Now, I have not talked to anyone at FIRST about the new system, nor have I had the opportunity to see the system first hand to know what it's limitations might be that would prevent reuse from one year to another. But we all have to remember that the system is still "young," and we may find out down the road that our best intentions in its design for whatever purpose(reuse, flexibility of design, etc, etc.) may not work out long term.
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