Camera does not search in autonomous mode after reset

[steven114]

For the record, I was talking specifically about the camera communications state machine - when I inserted a default to catch the improper 'zero' state, it printed out errors galore.

[Keith Watson]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Sure, on large, complex systems with lots of resources you'd instrument the code or HDL to catch such cases. Instrumenting a very simple state machine that cannot (by inspection) have an invalid state, in a resource constrained system where code readability is of paramount importance, doesn't make sense to me.

After working with many experienced software engineers over the years I can confirm that many experienced software engineers have that same opinion. Yet just the camera.c and tracking.c files have 11 debug statements. One of those is implemented in a state machine and is called 18 times.

For all the high school programmers watching out there, creating robust software systems is an important consideration in software design, even in a resource limited machine. I have programmed on much smaller systems than the IFI. Just because you think certain conditions should not happen does not mean that they never will.

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

If the static state variable isn't getting initialized at boot time, a wonky state machine is the least of your worries .

I know. I will persue it until I can track down the error we observed.

[Keith Watson]

Originally Posted by steven114

For the record, I was talking specifically about the camera communications state machine - when I inserted a default to catch the improper 'zero' state, it printed out errors galore.

Thank you for the clarification. I have now added that instrumentation to my code.

Congratulations on 2nd place. Your alliance buddy Corvalis is one of our neighbors.