FRC Blogged - Frank Answers Fridays: August 30, 2013

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I don't know enough about software to justify expressing an opinion here, but I was just wondering what game-specific software components existed in the past.

The vision examples usually give away the vision target designs for the game.
What bugs me is that they claim waiting simplifies things. If teams got the software earlier, they'd figure out the problem, and there wouldn't be a whole bunch of midseason updates.

Originally Posted by The Answer

1. Streamline the effort. We’d prefer that teams only need to download packages once, rather that download one set and require them to come back later to get the updates that include game-specific content.

Here's a list of all the stuff released after kickoff that teams needed to find and download.

1. C++ update 3/4/2013
2. Driver Station Update 2/5/13
3. C++ 2nd update 2/7/13
4. Java Update 1/18/13
5. LabVIEW update 2/2/13
6. C++ 1st update 1/18/13
7. FRC utilities update 1/8/13
8. Bridge Configuration Utility Update
9. LabVIEW 2012 Update (improved simulation performance)
10. First Driver Station Update (sometime in January)
11. Robot Builder r620
12. SmartDashboard 1.04 1/16/13
13. SmartDashboard 1.05 2/14/13
14. 2nd Java Update 2/7/13

This is more than 1 package download, so they already don't achieve their goal.

Originally Posted by The Answer

Minimize team confusion (e.g. what the is the most recent version? Which version do I need to compete on the field?)

This is pretty confusing if you ask me...

For C++, Release rel1424 rev 3622 mandatory update.
Possibly 2nd C++ midseason update rel1419
Possibly C++ midseason update rel1416 rev 3599

For Java,
2nd midseason update
1st midseason update

For LabVIEW
LabVIEW 2012 update 5.10

For everybody
Driver station update 3

Originally Posted by The Answer

3. Avoid distributing software that may not be the legal version for competition (this gets back to #2, teams think they have the right stuff, it was distributed by FIRST after all, only to find out that they need to update before getting on the field – a frantic and frustrating experience)

Well, I know our team got confused because of the two driver station updates. We performed the first one, but not the second one because when the second one was released, all evidence of the first one was gone, and the web page for the first one redirected to the second one. So we saw that we had downloaded a file from the same website, and assumed we had the most recent version.

FIRST needs to open software beta testing to all teams, so bugs can be found, tons of updates removed, and teams can get the software before kickoff. They should NEVER release software that hasn't been looked at by teams on kickoff. I know some bugs in 2013 weren't present in the beta test, and it makes no sense to do beta testing, if you're going to add more code/bugs to the finished product!