Reducing code complexity

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

This year, my team actually used the command based stuff, and I can't recommend it with a straight face. You can kind of get towards a problem some call "callback hell".

I'm curious what sort of horrible difficulties you ran into with the command-based template. I used it this year and it greatly simplified organizing and modularizing code compared to working with the SimpleTemplate. The biggest headaches I ran into was forgetting to statically initialize subsystems to NULL, making it repeat fire discs when the trigger was held, and remembering that commands attached to events are actual object instances that are created once at program initialization. The latter was probably the biggest headache since it meant reworking the shoot command so it would check the joystick inputs and look up the selected setpoint itself instead of getting instantiated with it. The pluses were pretty significant, since it greatly simplified event sequencing for autonomous and firing sequences. I think the biggest limitation is that you can't easily implement a true general purpose Finite State Machine using Commands and CommandGroups since CommandGroups are just static lists of Commands to run one after the other(ish). No transitioning from one state to a variety of others based off inputs and such.

So, what's your beef with command based stuff?