Reducing code build time

[Tom Line]

We've made a concerted effort over the past three years to create code that doesn't need to be recompiled.

For instance, any constant (numeric) value that we use on the robot is actually stored in a text file and loaded at code startup.

Likewise, we use a scripting system that reads the commands from text files for autonomous.

In that way, changes to auton or constants are as quick as a change of a number in notepad, and then double clicking a batch file to dump it onto the cRIO. We can write entirely new and complicated autonomous programs in a minute or two.

You can even do the same for your hardware assignments, like DIO or PWM channels, etc, so if hardware breaks you can change which port your using in seconds rather than 5 minutes.