On the quality and complexity of software within FRC

[faust1706]

Originally Posted by sforsyth

You most likely have not worked in the real world

This is my second summer interning as a software developer. The code base is cleaner than anything I have ever written and it is highly organized. Extremely navigable, highly commented, and the code you submit has to get approval from your ENTIRE team before it gets pushed. The company deals with massive amounts of data for analysis. Optimization is the name of the game. More functions than not have their corresponding big O with it, and many have big theta as well. Anyways, irrelevant.

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

I agree there's a lot of poor quality code in FRC and little higher-level discussion.

A lot of high schoolers do poorly with programming

Studies suggest that roughly 40 percent of people aren't even capable of learning to program. Just look at the fizz bizz test. Really good read.

Originally Posted by gblake

I am surprised by how few people have challenged the OP's assertion that I'll paraphrase as "most FRC software stinks"; and by how many respondents seem to embrace that assessment.

First agree on what you want a given collection of software to do and be. Then have a proper conversation about quality.

Because it is the general consensus it seems. I did expect some backlash. While robots vary greatly year after year, the software generally does not. I forget where I read this, but it basically said that software is not considered good if it isn't able to adapt to an unforeseen use of it.

Imaging if google crashed when you tried to find a route from london to toyko,

Making adaptive code is something that needs to be a goal from the start, not an after thought.

How about we all just real Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and call it a day in regards to a conversation of quality?

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

Reading code is not very fun.

I love reading code, especially elegant and concise code. I think I'll make an off season "competition" of a code standard challenge from the team's code this year. I'll begin working on the details tomorrow with a friend and anyone else who is interested.