What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?

[vtrehan]

I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit. As far as I understand, the purpose of FIRST is to give students experience and education with technology and science and leave them with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

The builders get pride after building the robot with their own hands, and the programmers get pride out of giving life to the robot by using tools that give them experience in problem solving for the real life; however by handing out this new system they have snatched all the glory out of the hands of the programmers. What’s next, they are going to send us pre-built robots, to just play with?

As far as real life is concerned, many of us are aspiring engineers, the ones responsible to develop the technologies of tomorrow, by providing these tools they have taken away the learning process and the experience of real life that FIRST should supposedly provide.

Well that’s how I see it,
Vivek.

[BandChick]

Yeah, you might not be learning what a loop is or where to put a semi-colon, but you are learning the basics. Who knows, maybe it will INSPIRE kids to learn more about programming. After all, starting with simple html like making things bold, I taught myself how to make complex and professional-looking websites. Everyone has to start somewhere.

[Red Dragon]

I think this new scripting language may turn out to be a kind of double edged sword. Sure its probably going to help on on some of the low level stuff such as simple movement, forward, back, basic turning etc. but in my experience you usually end up rewriting the tools that were supposed to help you out to get it to work for you application. for something generic, yeah the scripts would probably fit in and work fine, but anything above that would either need a ton of supplement code bits to do the same thing, or just cut out the middle and write your function the exact way you need it the first time. more often then not, any time i get scaled down, or some kind of scripting language it helps in the beginning but ends up to be secondary to what i could do if i made it from scratch.

anyway its optional to use so its no really biggy. take what you need from it and leave the rest IMO.

on the other hand it does make getting into programming easier. heck if a person doesn't have any background or past interest in programming and you sit them down and show them a little C. they are either going to drop it right there and then or learn it IMO. with these little (don't shoot me on this please) "dummied" functions and commands, it helps getting more people into it. if they like it, they will find some more thing to learn on the subject and grow from there.

e.g earlier in the year we were messing around with some mindstorm sets. some of us opted to use NQC to code others used the IMO worthless software that comes with the set. NQC isn't the most complex coding language out there but it was fairly easy to learn initially and eventually we had some guys expanding the basic functions to suite their own needs. so it going to be a step up for some but not all.

Its a tool for our use in a pretty nice tool set we have from FIRST, we may or may not use all the stuff in it, but its bound to help somewhere

[Code\\Pilot]

Scripts? well, i think that they can help the advanced programmers to use the time wasted on writing simple commands,use that time for cooler stuff. And for the rookies to not be too afraid of programming. I think that the veteran programmers should encourage the rookie programmers into not being completely dependant on the script. This new way of presenting the code may speed things up.

I mean, there is a good side and a bad side for almost anything, if we stick to the old way of writing code, new programmers might get intimidated by all those functions, but after practicing they can master it, and be real coding wizards.
On the other hand, scripting might spoil them, and the people that went trough all the hardships of dry code might feel not so good about it, but the rookie might get interested on what its going on under the scripting, and the veteran could work better things out with scripting help. And if the rookies don't want to practice with real code, you can always beat the crap out of them, hehehe.

In conclusion, using scripting should be like smoking.... Handle with care.

[CmptrGk]

if there is source for how the scripting language works, people may even be able to learn how to use some of the functions becase they may be able to see how the text turns into c code. im sorry if this doesnt make any sense.

[Astronouth7303]

I have mixed feelings about the new setup.

One the one hand, it's really cool that they've given us all this cool stuff to work with. The scripting will be cool (I hope), since I won't have to debug auton much, and the electrical engineer can do it himself.

But on the other one, I said during the kick-off, "Dang, ther're putting me out of a job." (Which isn't entirely true. With my relatively new PHP skills, I'll still be in demand. ) I'm a little worried about limits of the scripting language (spedifically, doing things with arms and driving at the same time). I'm also nervous about how "leveling the playing field" will limit the designs we see (Both in code and in the bot). (Remember how last year there was great variation in the basic look of a bot? Arms, bins, plows, etc.) Also, I'm helping frCoder a little, and that's basically what FIRST just did.

One thing's for sure, this is making for an interesting season.

[galewind]

Personally, I think that people are underestimating the advantage of having more scripts available. Let's draw comparisons to prior years:

1) 2003 - Autonomous code introduced. Could either do line tracking, reflective tape reading, or dead reckoning. Did you see anyone use the reflective tape? Not me! I'd say 85% of the robots that I saw did dead reckoning.

2) 2004 - Introduced infrared ability which contained code that, for many, was godawful to understand and incorporate, and extemely difficult to create without help from sites like kevin.org . Line tracking was back, and a few more teams used it. How did most teams end up coding it? Dead reckoning.

3) 2005 - Cameras, colors, and tetras, oh my!

This year raises the complexity of the routines, but limits the number of options you have for auntonomous mode. To rookies and new programmers, it would be fairly difficult to go from not knowing anything about FIRST coding to go to something this complex, especially where dead reckoning is not nearly as valuable as in past years (IMO). I think that providing scripts can be valuable for competition purposes, as well as "tutorials" to people, making it a tremendous learning experience.

I have a feeling that without these scripts to help facilitate programming, a lot of rookie teams would find their autonomous modes completely useless. And i really think that autonomous mode is going to be THAT much more important this year.

For experienced programmers, I think this provides them a fantastic opportunity to generate their own scripts to share with people, as Dave recommended during the kickoff. Have a unique and effective way to find the vision tetra? program a script! see if it's reproducable!

Anyway, I'm just ranting. My thought is that unless you plan on closing out new team registrations, you're not going to be able to advance the complexity of the game without providing an "out" for other teams to play catch up.

Realistically, you can learn to do the programming for the new routines on your own, and perhaps contriibute to the effort, rather than fight the notion that sharing with others can be a good thing.

[Merv Burger]

Now, this is all my personal opinion, but I think what a lot of the people who are putting this new coding method down, are "forgetting" that they don't have to use this new method. Yeah, I can understand the frustration that can occur knowing that while you're working away at this difficult coding process, someone else can be doing essentially the same thing with very simple commands. But the advantage you have over the "simple" code is that you get to tweak it. That you can ultimately have greater control over the code.

By having this advantage, you can do things better and more efficiently than the person doing it the easy way. I don't know about you guys, but I'd find some satisfaction in that.

[sabrina752]

I just joined Robotics for the end of last year, and Ive taken Java(similar to C) for the past year and a half and wow.... the knowledge of code required is so minimal it hurts... I asked one of the mentors at a kickoff about optimizing the code and he said there's not much room for it. But maybe as a few people mentioned before, FIRST is handing us the code over because strategy will be key this year. 3 robots battling it out for only 2 minutes??? Its going to be a dog-eat-dog world, we're going to need to focus on tactic, not so much code... Although, writing code is fun. *tear*

[CJO]

According to one of our team mentors, the new scripting language is based on fortran, a programming language used to control the space shuttle, nuclear reactors, etc. I have not had a chance to verify this, but if NASA uses fortran scripting, and they implemented the new system, it kind of makes sense.

On another note, I have the new C18 compiler, but I cannot find the actual scripting set up? Was not there supposed to be a linik from the first page to a software dump area?

[pickle]

I also have kind of mixed feelings on this. I do feel it takes some of the challenge out, what fun is it if you haven't ripped out all your hair and beaten your now bald head against the wall for extended periods of time.... But it makes sense. If you want to be technical, FIRST gave us alot of code last year, we didn't have to make the processors interface or anything, they gave us default code, and they let us use C, which is a higher level language than ASM. We could have to code it all from scratch using purely ASM.... All that they've done, is given us a higher level interface to a lower level system, which is all a programming language or scripting language is.

For the argument that it may make people "not realize their passion", I would argue the opposite. Learning C is a daunting task, its huge, and there are tons of quirks and tricks to it. It might actually scare newer programmers away. I discovered my love for programming when my cousin's girlfriend taught me some HTML 6 years ago, and I've been hooked on all kinds of programming ever since. I found it through something simple, and moved up to more complicated stuff, once you catch the bug, you want to be able to do more and more and more. Its probable that the more experience programmers will feel limited by the tools given, and will work to expand them, whereas the newer programmers will be satisfied with what is given to them, and won't worry about it. You can't give a first grader a calculus book and expect them to learn, or like math, you have to start them off simple. For many people, its fine to work with the tools given and not worry about the underlying workings. I bet many of you code in C, or Java, or something like that, and don't think about the assembly version of what you're writing.

Most of the time in the real world, you'll be given something to work with. You have argued "What if you're the person making that tool?" Well, then you must be very very very good at what you do. Why did you write your own scripting stuff in years past? JUst for your health? It was to provide an easier interface to something much more complex. And what do you do by sharing that code? You have given less experience people a way to easily write complex code. It doesn't hurt to know whats going on behind the scenes, as a matter of fact, its a great thing to know, but its not something thats required. Look at people who use HTML, they aren't writing every paint command for the browser window, somebody else did that for you, and you use their frontend.

But I see the other side, I have a tendancy to like reinventing the wheel, I don't like to use other people's code, I like to do it myself, and thats all fine and dandy if you're not working against a deadline, but if I'm pressed for time on a project, then I will certainly use somebody else's code if I can.Theres doing for the sake of accomplishing something, and then for personal enrichment. Usually for personal enrichment you aren't fighting a deadline, and if you want to spend months researching the inner workings of something, you by all means can, but FIRST doesn't give that luxury. If you worked for a game making firm, and you were supposed to have a game released in 6 months, lets say you spend 4 researching how the graphics hardware works, and 1.5 months writing a library to interface with it. Thats great, but now you have half a month to make a game, when you could have used something that was already out there and had 6 months to focus on the game. Using tools doesn't make you any less of a programmer, it makes you a more efficent worker. My English teacher in 9th grade drilled this into our heads, "Work smarter, not harder." Thats a real life lesson for ya.

[n0cturnalxb]

Honestly .. I like it. Some people might not be able to get much out of it, but I know I will. I taught myself HTML through comparing the code to the results .. this gives me a chance to teach myself some basic C programming by comparing the code to the English version of it all.

-shrugs-

Then again, not everyone thinks like me, so.. I don't know. Personally, though, I'm sort of glad that they did what they did. Advanced programmers/teams aren't restricted to the "simple" coding, either.. so you can do whatever you want.

[Caleb Fulton]

You can still read through their code and gain from it, especially the well-designed state machines and conventions used for the RS-232 driver they wrote and how they interface the driver with the camera. They did an amazing job of separating concerns -- keeping the implementation of the autonomous functions completely separate from the functions themselves, such that only VERY little knowledge of the inner-workings of the functions is needed in order to use them. We spent A LOT of time last semester in advanced C learning methods for doing this, and I suspect that it is a valued attribute of any large software programming environment in the "real world."

I agree somewhat with you all, though, that something as simple as an angular/displacement PID system should have been left to the teams. These are fundamental control topics from which many team members have learned a lot in the past, including myself.

[Chris_Elston]

I've been all about sharing everything I learn. I even post my source code that I write for industrial automation. If you care to look:

http://forum.mrplc.com/index.php?act...hor=chakorules

I even shared my electrical symbols addon for AutoCad for the whole world to download:
http://forum.mrplc.com/index.php?act...CODE=02&id=146

I encourge this because my purpose is to help people learn quicker and get the job done faster. I think you can still learn alot by seeing what others have done. That's how open source software got started. Everyone looks at what someone else has done, and makes it better. It's like stacking your man hours ontop of each other. You keep adding to the time that has already been spent to perfect the product. In this case, your robot automous mode.

But the points in here are vaild, it depends on what kind of a person you are.
Your either a Linus Torvalds or a Bill Gates... LOL ;-) no pun intended..

On a side note...I've been looking at this new software and I still haven't found this "scripting" yet anyway....bah....I am going to bed...

I've been able to complie and debug the new 2005 code and the 2005 Camera code, but no scripting for the kiddies in there yet...

[Alex Pelan]

I think this is great. As time goes on, and as we FIRST students become FIRST mentors, higher and higher level programming languages (ones that are closer and closer to being exactly like language) are going to become a lot more common. FIRST is giving us one of these, except it only has two built in functions. It's an entirely different experience, and if you don't want to use it, you don't have to. Would you rather write code in binary than assembly? Rather write in assembly than C? The same principle applies here. I think this is great for the rookie teams because, as anyone who attended competitions last year, not many teams were able to have a functioning autonomous. THis is making it so that everyone has at least something for their autonomous mode.