Do you write functions for your code?

[mtrawls]

I reallly appreciate the new ability of C to give us not only real functions, but multiple files. I took full advantage of it. (Granted, during the "heat" of a coding session while working on the robot, the code often digressed into horrible slurs of barely legible mush ... I *did* clean it up a bit so others could understand it though )

An example you say? Well, we have an arm that picks up the 2x multiplier, but it tends to backdrive badly, making it difficult to control with the joystick. So, we put in some "antibackdrive" code to stop this, which I put in functions ... including a function to move the arm to a given setpoint (it has a pot on it), which proved useful for the auto ball-knock-down routine.

Oh, and as for the many files I had: obviously, a custom_defs file for all of the many constants a robot always seems to need (much quicker access than scrolling through pages of pbasic code!); and, something that proved particularly useful at vcu, a file named cond_comp.h. That is, conditional compilation. Everything in it is just commented out (shock!) -- there're just a bunch of tests to do in the pit; e.g., test acceptance angle of IR sensors/make sure they haven't broken (funny little things like to do that), we have a "harpoon" whose chain tends to break if we come in too hard, so power is limited in the code when it is too close (another pot on it) ... but when pot is removed and we redo limits, there's a test that debugs the pot values, removes the limit code and sets a low speed setting for the motor ... etc. You can imagine that this saves a lot of time having it all thought out ahead of time, just commenting/uncommenting and testing away. I know there's a thread saying just the opposite ... but I love C!