What Language To Use?

[Team 3705]

Hi, I am one of the leads in charge of programming for Team 3705. We are trying to participate for the 2012 challenge, we are a fairly new team.

We used C++ last year, and did not have autonomous mode.
I want to look at other languages that we could possibly use. So, far I would love to use Python to program the robot, but there seems to be some issues.

Please comment on what languages we could use, we are fairly new. Most of the people that are in charge of programming the robot are not familiar with programming at all. So, I have to be able to teach them also including myself.

Suggestions? Comments?

[EricH]

Last year, you could use C++, Java, or Labview and be supported. Some people did write in Python, but had to write their own whatever-you-call-it to make it work.

[Mk.32]

C++/JAVA/Labview are the most popular, python is doable but it is relatively new and you will need to do a bit of extra work to get it to work, more info on the python select of the forum.

You should start with whatever language you and/orthe rest of your team (including mentors) know best. For us it was JAVA and it worked out quite well for us.

If none of you know one language in particular, all 3 has pros and cons. There are some threads about that if you do a quick search.

[Team 3705]

I really like Python, but I still think it needs work. We might just as well go with C++ again. But I will definitely try to test Python and see if it is something that we can use as an alternative.

[Mk.32]

Originally Posted by Team 3705

I really like Python, but I still think it needs work. We might just as well go with C++ again. But I will definitely try to test Python and see if it is something that we can use as an alternative.

What off season is for.
If you have enough programmers, you can even have 2 teams, one that codes in Python and one that does C++. And for competition use which ever works better.

[Team 3705]

Well, everyone in my team is a newbie to all this. We lost our program lead last year.

So its all up to me, and we are lacking members on some fields. I am really worried about the state of organisation in my team.

No one has done collaborative development before. Last year it was a one man job. This year I am trying to spread out the work, but everyone is really new to programming. Since we are a team in HS, most of these students are in Grade Nine. For some reason, we are lacking more senior students with knowledge, which I plan on changing.

Some of the things that I already started doing is auditing last year's code. But I have much more to do. Would love to see someone else's C++, or just general code.

[Tom Line]

If you do a search here on chief delphi, you'll find people have posted their competition code. Likewise, many beta teams posted their code at the end of beta last year, which would give you a good bit of code to look at. You can find the beta forums at www.usfirst.org.

[Tommy F.]

I'm just going to put this out there:

If your team is interested in learning LabVIEW, there are great guides to get you started and keep you going at http://www.frcmastery.com/.

[DonRotolo]

If you think your team may be "struggling with programming", then I suggest picking a language that has a lot of FRC support already available. While Python may be cool, you'll struggle with it far more than with LabView, for example.

The choice for our team was mainly dictated by what the mentors knew, and that was LabView.

Remember that no matter which language you choose, there is generally no task that can't be done. So it becomes a matter of what is easiest to master.

Don

[Duke461]

For more of a comparison between the languages, read this thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ing+langu age

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by 7h0m54

I'm just going to put this out there:

If your team is interested in learning LabVIEW, there are great guides to get you started and keep you going at http://www.frcmastery.com/.

+100

that is how I re-learned labview... that, and reverse-engineering the code for an old 2010 bot (and getting a better resultant code) worked out well.

for newcomers, labview would be my recommendation. but use whatever your team knows best.

[Bryan Herbst]

If there is any question about which programming language to use, I would follow Don's advice and stick with C++, Java, or Labview.

You will find that if you encounter any problems, there will always be a mentor or student on another team nearby that can help you with any of those three. If you go with Python, your choices for assistance will be far more limited.

Python is fun for the off-season, but I would always stick to an officially supported language for the competition, because the libraries for the officially supported languages have been heavily tested and you get the support of other teams.

[Team 3705]

Thanks for all of your guys opinion! We will definitely look into using C++ and maybe LabView.

I would prefer C++ though!

I hope python is an option out there though, but who knows. I will try to experiment when I have the time.

My team also has a bad design team. So there is definitely a problem there also.

Anyways, thanks for the reply! Will definitely look at the various code out there.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by PRich1477

Look into getting a team Dropbox account, or something similar (if you haven't already). We use our Dropbox for everything. Our CAD is shared on there (CAD is very important to us since we use sheet metal), our code (with all previous versions, so we can revert if we mess up), as well as team pictures and videos for the marketing and Chairman's team.

Very good idea, however dropbox is not the best solution for software revision management. If you are programming in JAVA or C I strongly reccomend using SVN, this will allow you to commit changes, allow you to see who is working (or has worked) on what and you can always roll back to older versions. Both windRiver and NetBeans have plugins for SVN. I am not sure if LabVIEW supports svn but I do recall a thread discussing it a while back.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Team 3705

My team also has a bad design team.

Is the team bad, or just their designs, or both? Or is it a case where the design is great, but just for a different game? Or is it a reliability problem? Or...?

You can't fix everything in software, but some rational and logical suggestions might be able to turn bad into good. How can we help?