View Single Post
  #23   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 25-03-2010, 16:26
Jon Stratis's Avatar
Jon Stratis Jon Stratis is offline
Mentor, LRI, MN RPC
FRC #2177 (The Robettes)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 3,835
Jon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond reputeJon Stratis has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Driver station coding and other

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas Clark View Post
Okay, I accidentally caused another thread to get hijacked and locked, so I thought I should create a new one specifically for this topic.

After my first season, I'd like to say is that, truthfully, the FIRST tools are poorly thrown together. Although I'm not as experienced here as some people, I'd like to say a few things about them and ask if anyone agrees.
If you really think that, you should have been around even a few years ago... things were much, much worse. The system in place today is easy to use and, quite simply, works. The average student can write and download code to the robot without running into any hassles, which was NOT true about the old IFI system (there were times with that system where i would be forced to bang my head for several hours just to get code to download... then do it all over again the following week!).

Quote:
The robot itself runs an unprotected FTP server. I really fear someone exploiting this, and I've already demonstrated that this is possible (no, I won't post the code). IMHO, they should either use a password, or, better yet, use encrypted SSH file transfer (SFTP).
First off, if you really fear someone exploiting this, then you haven't fully grasped one of the core concepts of FIRST - Gracious Professionalism. Trying to do something like this is, quite simply, cheating, and if it happens (and when it gets caught) you can be sure FIRST would be pretty strict.

Second, FIRST puts into place sufficient safeguards to ensure nothing accidental happens to the robots while they're on the field. Your average person in the stands, playing around on their laptop, isn't going to "accidentally" get connected to the secure field system. They aren't going to be able to "accidentally" do anything to the robots through the network. It would take a dedicated, intentional, and somewhat lengthy (at least 30 minutes if they're an expert, probably more like 2-10 hours for a good comp sci-focused student) process to be able to seriously negatively affect the robots.

Quote:
The compiler doesn't support anything besides Windows, and some of us prefer Linux. The IDE I don't care about (I never use IDEs, just makefiles), but FIRST is limiting users' experiences by limiting who can program and on what operating system. IMHO, they should provide a build of the WPI library and compiler for Linux.
Welcome to the real world. Out here, a vast majority of work is done on Windows. In fact, where i work we have to do everything on Windows except for the actual deployment, which goes to some AIX boxes. As for not using IDEs and only makefiles... you really don't know what you're missing out on. makefiles are handy, I use them all the time... but you really do need an IDE once your project gets past a certain size. Imagine trying to work on a project with several thousand files and millions of lines of code... you aren't going to do that with VI. Get used to IDEs now, learn how to use them effectively. They provide shortcuts that will make you a better programmer.

Quote:
Another this is the library. Although it's obvious that tremendous effort was put into it, I can tell that it was rushed to be finished before the build season started. All I can say is that I hope it's better next year.

Agree? Disagree? Another other notes?
Again, you should have seen what we had before. The library we have today works. It's not perfect, it may be missing a few things, but it's a heck of a lot better than what we had with IFI. Most importantly, it can be picked up by anyone. Someone with no code experience can pick it up, read a little documentation, and have a driving robot very quickly. You couldn't do that before.


All that said, if you don't like the current state of things, you have two options. You can sit here and complain about it, hoping that someone fixes it for you, or you can go out there and fix it yourself.

You want to be able to code, compile, and download on linux? Make it happen! start up the project, get the basic outline, and get it up on sourceforge. Post here about your efforts, and you'll find people willing to help. Before long, you'll have something working. It may remain as a community supported project for the rest of time, or FIRST/WPI/NI may pick it up and integrate it into their offerings, but either way you will have had a material impact on the program.

You think the security FIRST has for its network on the field isn't sufficient? Do the research, create a well-written white paper on robot security, and make some suggestions for improvements. Work with your own robot to implement some of these suggestions. Create youtube videos demonstrating the exploit and how your suggestions make it impossible.

In short, be productive about this. Its clear you're passionate about the subject. Use that passion to improve things for everyone, instead of sitting behind a keyboard whining about what FIRST should do for you. I can promise you - if you take some of these "problems" your posting about here and lead efforts to fix them, you'll be better for it. It will change the way you look at problems in the future. It will give you something great to talk about when interviewing for college or jobs.