Programs for the new FRC platform

[antoineft]

Our team has had the controller for the past month and we were in the same spot, wondering whether to go with Labview or C++. We put together sample programs in both languages and tested with last years robot. Not going to say anything about the pre-made WPI libraries as I'd say they are fairly equal. Here's some pro's and con's of each.

C++ PROS's:
1 - Coding is more familiar to older teams
2 - Better chance of finding a C/C++ expert/mentor than a Labview expert
3 - **not 100% sure, but I heard somewhere that C++ runs faster on the cRIO than LabView, don't quote me on that

C++ CON's:
1 - Visual feedback looks archaic when compared to what LabView can do
2 - harder to explain coding to a non-programmer


LABVIEW PROS's:
1 - visual interface (feedback) destroys anything you can do in C++ with the same amount of effort
2 - National Instruments support and tutorials are top notch, everytime I hit a dead end, I just searched on the NI website and found my answer.
3 - from an unbiased point of view, LabView is easier to teach to new programmers and easier to explain (once you get the feel for it, I've found LabView easier to pick up than I did C originally)
4 - **don't quote me again but I can see more control/innovation awards going to teams using LabView this year on the basis that it is new, and showing a cool looking LabView interface to a judge who doesn't have a programming background will "wow" them more.

LABVIEW CON's:
1 - For most teams (including us) this is our first time using LabView
2 - Won't be as much in-depth support from other team experts as most will have 10 years of experience with C type coding, and only 1 year of LabView
3 - The more hard-core text based (old-school) programmers you have on your team, the harder it will be to convince them to use LabView and the more they will complain about it... just my prediction

In the end, we chose LabView. If anyone else has more pro's & con's, I'd love to hear them.

Antoine Trabulsi
Team 2609