What does your team use to share code?

[baumgartensam]

Originally Posted by frcteam2501

Thanks for all the help!
On our team it seems like every programmer brings their own computer to work on so we will try using Github, the problem we've been having with flash drives is that you can't easily merge codes, does Github merge codes if 2 people are working at once? (anyone have a link to a tutorial on how to use it for FRC?)

Yes, that is one of git (and therefore Github's) most powerful features. Most code that is used for FRC (java or c++) will be automatically merged very nicely.

Github is also one of the largest hosted source control products used today. It's a good skill to have (ability to use git) as you will need to use it out in the professional world.

Pull requests are one feature Github has which enable teams to do code review (aka before code enters the main code base, another person has to look over it first). This is a really good practice to get into and Github makes it very easy to do. https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/

Lastly, Github gives FRC teams a free silver organization (https://github.com/pricing). You can request it at https://github.com/edu.

[Jpatterson1710]

We use dropbox. Any programmers, or anyone who might just use the code is invited to a shared dropbox folder. If you download the dropbox program is shows up like any other folder on your device, and you can save just like normal. Everyone will have access to the newest code immediately after its saved on whatever device last worked on it.

[frcteam2501]

What happens if you have 2 programmers working on code at the same time? Does dropbox try to merge your codes? or does it just take the newest one?

[yash101]

Git is probably a really good way to keep your code, even if you are programming yourself. I have a GitHub account and it has saved me a lot of work.

Just yesterday, I had a problem, where I was pushing a small change to my repo in the sky at GitHub. I tried to remove the build folder using the command:

PHP Code:

rm -r *build 


I forgot "build" and all of a sudden, my command became:

PHP Code:

rm -r * 


Too bad so sad for the work done. It's alright though. My change was quite small. Because of that, I just cloned the repo again and redid that change.
It took me about 15 minutes to fix my large mistake.
If I didn't use GitHub, I would have lost 2 weeks of work!

[frcteam2501]

Does anyone know of any examples on how to use Github for FRC C++?

[yash101]

My repositories are about 90% C/C++ .
Feel free to check out every inch of it
https://github.com/yash101
To download a repository,
user@dev~/soft $ git clone <location of repository>

[Jpatterson1710]

Dropbox overwrites with the newest saved version. Thats why we just keep numbered versions (V1, V1.1, V2, V2.1).

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Jpatterson1710

Dropbox overwrites with the newest saved version.

Dropbox actually does give you the ability to restore previously saved versions of a file.* But it isn't really set up for the kind of version control that would be useful for most teams.

Thats why we just keep numbered versions (V1, V1.1, V2, V2.1).

Our "numbered versions" are copies of the project folder with the time and date appended to the name of the folder.


* That came in handy once when I accidentally saved an empty copy of my son's senior design project. I think he still isn't aware that it happened.

[Team118Joseph]

During the season we use one of our facilities desktops as a SVN server. After the season ends we publish the code on our team's website.

[FRC2501]

Thanks for all the help!
I have been using GitHub for a few weeks and it has been working great! (They even gave our team bronze for free!)

Now comes the hardest part, convincing the Programming Captain that GitHub is better than flash drives, he refuses to use GitHub (maybe because he's a Senior and a Sophomore set it up and knows more than him?) and I need to convince him that GitHub is easier to use and better for organizing the 10+ programmers we now have.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by FRC2501

Thanks for all the help!
I have been using GitHub for a few weeks and it has been working great! (They even gave our team bronze for free!)

Now comes the hardest part, convincing the Programming Captain that GitHub is better than flash drives

That's easy, take the flash drive, and hide it.

[FRC2501]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

That's easy, take the flash drive, and hide it.

I wish, he keeps 2 on his keychain

[Spoam]

Originally Posted by FRC2501

Thanks for all the help!
I have been using GitHub for a few weeks and it has been working great! (They even gave our team bronze for free!)

Now comes the hardest part, convincing the Programming Captain that GitHub is better than flash drives, he refuses to use GitHub (maybe because he's a Senior and a Sophomore set it up and knows more than him?) and I need to convince him that GitHub is easier to use and better for organizing the 10+ programmers we now have.

If he doesn't learn to use git now, he'll definitely need to learn to use it in the future. I interned for a multi-billion dollar software company, and even they have a GitHub repository (along with their own git server). If he wants to be serious about programming version control is a must. Good luck!

[MamaSpoldi]

We use SVN. I personally prefer it to Git because I find the operations are simpler and more explicit... and like Git it is a full version control with merging code and marking revisions. In previous years we stored the repository on our team laptop and networked all the programmers' laptops with it using a router. This gave us full access to the history at competition on our team laptop if needed and in addition we make a back up to a flash drive of every version of code that is downloaded to the robot during the competition. This has been a saving grace a couple of times when someone in the pit moved the programming laptop and thought they didn't touch anything.

However, since this year's communications strategy lends itself to using Wifi, we have moved our repository to the cloud on SourceForge which works well with SVN. This will provide further flexibility for student programmers to grab updates at home and still fulfills our other needs. We will still be using the flashdrive backup occasionally during build season and most definitely everytime we deploy code at competition. There is nothing worse than not being sure what source code was used to generate the executable that is currently sitting on the robot.

[baumgartensam]

Originally Posted by frcteam2501

Does anyone know of any examples on how to use Github for FRC C++?

Here are some resources:
http://git-scm.com/book/en/v1/Getting-Started
https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/
https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/
https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/