Rookie team seeking some programming advice

[shuhao]

If you haven't yet experienced the joys of programming something that reacts to the outside world in realtime through sensors and actuators

Unfortunately I have not, which is why I don't know how practical it is to attempt to develop AIs, as I don't know how long it will take to hammer out all the issues with basic control.

I have a good understanding of the theory for AIs that's like these, but I have yet to find the the time to implement the theories behind them, especially on actual hardware, rather than simulated environments.

And since we are a rookie team, we have no prior experiences telling us how long it takes to write basic functions etc.

supply their own matrix math functions (for example)

Good idea. Gonna get the team to start porting/writing a basic linear algebra library.


Edit:

Just noticed http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=87260

Since my primary language (also currently as lead programmer) is Python, and I have some numpy experience (as oppose to no experience in any Java Lin. Alg library, if they manage to get it ported, and I could try helping, too), is it worth a try to get Python onto cRIO and then go from there?

A text editor (geany) + ftp (nautilus) sounds like heaven to me (minus the initial wind river stuff, but not a big deal)

[Ether]

Originally Posted by shuhao

Since my primary language (also currently as lead programmer) is Python, and I have some numpy experience (as oppose to no experience in any Java Lin. Alg library, if they manage to get it ported, and I could try helping, too), is it worth a try to get Python onto cRIO and then go from there?

As a rookie team with no students or mentors who have done robot-control software, you are going to want all the seasoned help and support you can get with that type of software. The best-supported language for FRC is LabVIEW. C++ is 2nd, and Java 3rd. Python is a distant 4th.

[shuhao]

Hm. Ok. I'll keep a distant eye on it, then.

What about unittesting? Is that commonly done?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by shuhao

What about unittesting? Is that commonly done?

The stable experienced teams are more likely to have a disciplined software development methodology. Many (most?) of the rookie teams are happy just to get something working well enough to compete.

[nyaculak]

Hey guys. Although my team primarily uses Java, our mentor tested out some C++ code that he compiled and ran on his Ubuntu machine. I believe he used something called ucpp

https://github.com/nikitakit/ucpp

I actually have no C++ experience, but I figured you guys should at least check this out.

Good luck!