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#1
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?
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p.s. 25 doesn't have any flourishing software engineers so I am not standing up for my team by any means. |
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#2
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?
Their is a significant difference in the ability to reverse engineer hardware over software. Many people can look at an assembly and then create a design from it. Thereby duplicating that assembly without mechanical drawings. The same can not be said about the software. Sure, you can guess as to how the code is implemented. However, you still don't know the design or the implementation.
I think it would be a step forward for teams to share their code. It's against my perception of FIRST to allow veteran teams to dominate autonomous by leveraging years of software development. It might be a good solution in the private sector but not in FIRST. |
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#3
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?
I don’t know what the big deal is. Many of you have typed more characters here than it would take to program the robot – autonomous mode included. So, your displeasure with the rule can’t be about wasted typing effort. Many have pointed out that the requirements change enough from year to year so that not much, if anything, from the code can escape customization. Since the rule, as all <R> rules, must only apply to what goes in the crate on ship day, then go ahead and start with the old code. By ship day it’ll be tweaked up beyond all recognition – TUBAR.
Any code that hasn’t been touched, you can rewrite. You’ll probably find you’ve improved it, if not in function, then in the appearance.There’s been a lot of discussion about the difference between hardware and software, especially as to why we can’t equate the two. Well, the main difference I see is that with software the raw material is infinite. We can create and destroy it with the press of a button. If we can live with leaving perfectly good hardware behind each year, then having to recreate software shouldn’t faze us a bit. There are times when I wish the DoD had an <R71>. I often write CAE software to facilitate signature research and analysis. There are a number of dinosaurs from the eighties, usually written in Fortran, that try to predict atmospherics, bi-directional reflection, thermodynamics, and etc. I don’t know how many times management wants us to incorporate this chunk of code from the Air Force, or that from the Navy, into something we can use to predict the performance of future combat systems. They all have this joint meeting of planners, each wanting to leverage their programs, so they conclude we can just write a wrapper around stuff that may, or may not, have worked all that well to begin with. My group prefers to start from scratch with the code, to take the essence of what has been done and bring it into line with the 21st. century. So, there may be some method to the madness of <R71>. It forces us to revisit and perhaps improve upon what was done, instead of dragging along dinosaurs year after year. |
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#4
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Re: Ethics 101: To re-use or not to re-use?
As i said in my last post and like alot of other people have said, FIRST is about learning. This rule is simply a big sign saying "learn from your code and know how it works" and so no one blindly copies things that they dont really know about (I know Kevin's code is hard to understand but an attempt can be made). Sharing your code is a great idea but in no means should it be the loophole for this rule. Yes teams that put in the hard work should reap the rewards but, these teams should be able to teach new programmers, robot designers, or someone with a question year to year about their code or part. I see copying and pasting code to be the same as sending a coppied CAD drawing of a mechanical component to a machinest. no one learns from anything. If some one learns from part of the robot in any way it is a whole of a lot better. FIRST is about teaching the students and simply copying and pasting or stealing designs is neither a goal of FIRST nor in the spirit of FIRST.
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