What software program/language is best for roboRio?

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by Larry Lewis

Another possible approach is to give the students the opportunity to use more than one language if you have the mentor and/or experienced students to support that.

For example you could use C++ or Java for the robot and LabVIEW for the operator controls. That way students get exposure to more than one language so they can determine what they are most proficient in.

I don't know much about robot code in Java or C++, but I know for LabVIEW most (if not all) of the input processing is done on the RoboRIO. You can program a fancy dashboard (as I usually do) but I don't know if a LabVIEW dashboard can communicate with a Java or C++ robot. I can definitely say that if you do decide to try both, you should switch them at some point because programming a dashboard in LabVIEW is very different than programming a robot.

[TheHolyHades1]

One thing that I don't believe has been mentioned is the speed / ease of teaching C++ and Java vs LabVIEW. While my teams haven't had experience in LabVIEW, I can say that FRC Java/C++ is often quite different from "real world" Java/C++, in that generally, a limited subset of the language is used.

I would second the advice about using the language your programming mentor knows best, but I'd also add that if you're planning on teaching students in a standard fashion, similar to a high school / college intro programming course, then the span of preseason isn't usually enough to get it done (at meetings, at least). If you're just teaching FRC specific coding, then with some effort it is certainly possible.

[Larry Lewis]

Originally Posted by Ari423

I don't know much about robot code in Java or C++, but I know for LabVIEW most (if not all) of the input processing is done on the RoboRIO. You can program a fancy dashboard (as I usually do) but I don't know if a LabVIEW dashboard can communicate with a Java or C++ robot. I can definitely say that if you do decide to try both, you should switch them at some point because programming a dashboard in LabVIEW is very different than programming a robot.

In the past we have done a LabVIEW dashboard while using C++ for the robot code. So that is a possibility for teams if they want to go with that approach.

I agree that programming a dashboard is very different than programming a robot. What I am suggesting is that by programming the robot in one language and the dashboard in another, you can give the same or different students some familiarity to the programming environments of both.

That being said I would introduce the students to both languages you choose prior to build season so that you are not trying to "learn on the job" during build season.

[virtuald]

Obviously, write the robot in Python, dashboard in HTML5/Javascript.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Arhowk

... Interpreted languages have numerous benefits, such as no deploy time and the ability to grab code from the roboRIO...

I don't mean to hijack the thread but this reminds me: When my team went to a compile/upload cycle outside of Eclipse we got a pretty dramatic speedup. We found that for C++ the waiting didn't need to be more than a couple seconds.

[Arhowk]

Originally Posted by virtuald

Obviously, write the robot in Python, dashboard in HTML5/Javascript.

Beat you

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

I don't mean to hijack the thread but this reminds me: When my team went to a compile/upload cycle outside of Eclipse we got a pretty dramatic speedup. We found that for C++ the waiting didn't need to be more than a couple seconds.

I actually modified my eclipse build scripts for Java and was able to get the deploy time down to 20% of what it used to be by removing useless junk (like checking if the robot has a JRE) and performing build-only-as-necessary.

Although it's decently irrelevant to the topic.

[fovea1959]

Arhowk: interested in posting your changes to build.xml?