Opinion Poll: Proliferation of Prefbricated Parts

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Software is getting to the point where not much needs to be done to get it to work. GRIP is a fantastic example of that this year. It takes most of the effort in getting vision code down to a bare minimum. That being said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. For many other non FRC projects, vision has always been a hassle. Whether it's getting libraries to be recognized correctly, installing OpenCV, or cluttering code, it's never been quite as straightforward as I would have liked. With GRIP though, I don't think I will ever have to worry about that again. Although it only supports exports to FRC network tables, it seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to modify the export so that it can be used in non FRC projects. Does it take a lot of the work out of getting vision code? Absolutely! Would I ever go back or tell students to go back to hard coding it for the sake of doing it manually? Probably not. Especially since it makes it easier to transition into more advanced concepts. As new platforms make things easier to code, new things will likely emerge to take it's place.