Can I Make Something Clear?

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I rather program from scratch using OpenGL than use Irrlicht or Ogre3d or other stuff... Builds character

I was thinking of not commenting on this tread. Too much flaming. Oh well.

I would much rather use libIrrlicht then access the raw OpenGL interface. It handles so much for me, more to not write. And with games (what Irrlicht was designed for), there is already so much to write it's not really funny to think about not using existing libraries.

As I once found in a programming book, in an early chapter on simplification and thinking through problems before implementing them:

The lazy programmer re-uses code whenever possible.

The message is clear. Don't ever re-invent the wheel. It has already been invented. Don't re-code something that has already been coded, that would be a waste of your time. Use it and build on top of it. You will still learn and feel accomplished.


Since you seem intent on autonomy, why not take a mars-rover approach and have the human give the robot simple commands which the robot then executes autonomously. Tell it what its goals are, where to move (virtual playing field?), possibly where objects of importance are, and let it generate and execute the curves and paths needed to perform the task. It will be much easier then letting it think on its own, because it is stupid until you make it un-stupid. And making it un-stupid will take a lot of software, much more then you want to write. The programming time necessary to let the humans make tactical decisions while letting the robot perform relatively simple drive commands will be much, much less then full autonomy. And, you can blame someone other than the programmer when it makes a mistake. Speaking of relatively simple, what is the most complex robot project you have programmed? Nothing near what you want to attempt.

Have fun. And use third party libraries where appropriate.
And, by the way, the cRio has a flash filesystem just asking to store configuration data. Much faster then re-compiling, much easier to implement then SD cards.