Curiosity on why most teams choose LabView

[Greg McKaskle]

In the interest of keeping things educational and inspirational, I'll continue the hijack just a bit longer to give a response to what makes something a programming language.

A programming language is a mathematical definition that distinguishes valid and invalid user programs, and defines the result of carrying out a sequence of instructions in a user program.

Normally tools such as compilers and runtime environment ,or interpreters are built so that a computer processor can behave according to the language constructs.

As an example, C is a language. gcc is a compiler tool for turning user text sequences into processor specific implementations of the user's C code.

Similarly, G is a graphical language, LabVIEW is a collection of tools for writing VI code or for compiling to a processor specific implementation.

Similarly, JAVA is a language, Squawk JVM is a runtime environment for executing JAVA bytecodes, and NetBeans is a collection of tools that support the JAVA language and allow it to target a specific JVM.

It doesn't actually take much to build a programming language. The math and theory to classify the inherent power of a program running on a processor was done in the '30s. If a language can build a Turing machine, it is capable of solving all computable problems and therefore can write any program, any tool, and is Turing Complete.

Classification of languages is somewhat less well defined. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language Excel and other spreadsheets are usually classified as domain specific. The VBScript which is hosted within Excel is general purpose.

From the computer science perspective, LabVIEW, Java, and C are all general purpose languages, but differ in the paradigms they support.

Other less mathematical definitions you can use to determine the power of a language include ...
Can you write a good game?
Can you write a compiler for your language or another language?
Are people willing to spend their time and money learning and using it?
Can you build a successful FRC robot programmed in that language?

The answer for all three FRC languages to all of these questions is yes.

One of the great things about FRC, IMO, is the exposure to different tools and techniques, different approaches, and different solutions. Opinions are fine and good, but don't let them obscure an opportunity to learn.

Greg McKaskle