Quote:
Originally Posted by apalrd
I was thinking of not commenting on this tread. Too much flaming. Oh well.
I would much rather use libIrrlicht then access the raw OpenGL interface. It handles so much for me, more to not write. And with games (what Irrlicht was designed for), there is already so much to write it's not really funny to think about not using existing libraries.
As I once found in a programming book, in an early chapter on simplification and thinking through problems before implementing them:
The message is clear. Don't ever re-invent the wheel. It has already been invented. Don't re-code something that has already been coded, that would be a waste of your time. Use it and build on top of it. You will still learn and feel accomplished.
Since you seem intent on autonomy, why not take a mars-rover approach and have the human give the robot simple commands which the robot then executes autonomously. Tell it what its goals are, where to move (virtual playing field?), possibly where objects of importance are, and let it generate and execute the curves and paths needed to perform the task. It will be much easier then letting it think on its own, because it is stupid until you make it un-stupid. And making it un-stupid will take a lot of software, much more then you want to write. The programming time necessary to let the humans make tactical decisions while letting the robot perform relatively simple drive commands will be much, much less then full autonomy. And, you can blame someone other than the programmer when it makes a mistake. Speaking of relatively simple, what is the most complex robot project you have programmed? Nothing near what you want to attempt.
Have fun. And use third party libraries where appropriate.
And, by the way, the cRio has a flash filesystem just asking to store configuration data. Much faster then re-compiling, much easier to implement then SD cards.
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Yes I see you point, but I am doing this for the educational purposes. We are all students, we are not programming a multimillion dollar project that needs to save as much man work as possible. I totally would love if there was a development kit that does autonomous for me in a couple lines of code, but where is fun or the experience in that? IDK about you, ever since I was in like 3rd grade, I started taking things apart trying to see how everything worked and put it back (some times I just render it unusable) But this is what I love, there is so much to learn. I am not working NASA or some crazy big company, that means my product will not reach a broad audience. I don't know how to explain, but this is not our job, to be a programmer. Our job is being a student, what does students do? Learn, learning will only happen if you try it your self. About your Mars Rover approach, just does not feel "right" sure if I can't fully reach my goal, may be I have to settle for less and continue on the next year, but my goal is not semi autonomous. Success is not a destination, its a journey.