Improving the experience of programmers and the effectiveness of code

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by spartango

At the same time, I'd like to point out that an absurd amount of FRC code is written by mentors, as opposed by students. This is the opposite side of the spectrum from the "no cs mentors" issue.. FRC is supposed to be about the students, but if mentors are writing the code, you cannot expect students to really be heavily involved in it.

Mmmk, FRC is not about the students. I direct your attention to USFIRST.org, you will see that while it is about inspiring young people it is NOT about students. Our goal is to transform the culture to recognize STEM as a viable career path. FRC is not the summer training camp, it is the Superbowl of smarts. Yes students learn but more importantly they are inspired by seeing what a robot can do, by seeing what a trained professional can make a robot do.

That being said, I will never tell a student they can't do something (barring safety or legality concerns). If a student is interested in programming I will always let them even if it means the code takes many times longer. If no student is interested I will do it myself though, there is no reason to FORCE a student to do something they aren't interested in. As a result of this belief I disagree with the notion that an "absurd" amount of FRC code is written by mentors. Not only do I question the validity of that statement (please cite your sources) but I also feel that you can only make that statement for YOUR team (or any team you are intimately familiar with).

For example, the years I was on 27 code was done with the involvement of students, as for 397, 2008 was initially done by me due to lack of student interest. A student came forward and took over when they were ready though. I am proud to say that in 2009 90% of the code on the 397 robot was done by a student programmer. Maybe he didn't write it all on his own but the closest I ever came to writing code for last years robot was some scribbles on a note pad helping him step through a problem. I hardly call that "absurd".