On the quality and complexity of software within FRC

[Monochron]

I'll throw out my 2 cents for what I think is the main thing that holds back the evolution of programming on a team:

Getting a mechanical system to the base state of "it works"(regardless of how well) takes a lot more effort and time then programming does. By that I mean that code changes can be done quickly and efficiently with minimal peoples' effort and mechanical changes often involve a team of people machining, bolting, cutting, lifting, etc. This may sound like programming could evolve quickly but what usually happens is that mechanical issues take precedence in the design process. When engineers are making a big modification to a mechanical part they often like to keep all other variables static. Which means programming changes don't go through if the mechanism still needs to be tested out / modified.

Once the code "works" it can be hard to justify changing it when you know that you are already sinking time into changing mechanical or electrical systems.


A good way to avoid these situations are to ensure that your programming team has an adequate testing environment so that code can evolve in isolation from ever changing mechanical parts. Set up a branching model so that you can give the mechanical folks a working build and then continue to develop in parallel. This is one of the things we strove for this past year and it, I think, made a big difference in the quality of our code.