Talk:Programming the Robot Controller
From FIRSTwiki
About the "this focusses on PIC C" edit -- how exaxtly does the article focus on "PIC C"? The sections all seem to be pretty basic, bare level C programming, nothing specific to the PIC Chip. An article on programming interrupts would have to focus on "PIC C" since that is low level hardware business ... an article on PIC C for dummies would obviously focus on PIC C ... but this is a general overview of C, and doesn't seem to mention a single thing unique to "PIC C". I don't mean to fuss, but we don't want to confuse people who are earnestly trying to learn. --Mrawls 14:04, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- The name is "Programming the Robot Controller", which says nothing about whether it is for the '04 RC or previous RCs. --Astronouth7303 14:08, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Sure, and I imagine we can update the page yearly, reflecting the new programming reference guide and archive the older versions on yearly pages. But I don't think it will change much, -- it's all but certain we'll be using C next year. My point, though, was this article isn't specific to PIC C. In fact, PIC C, as you call it, differs from ANSI C in only a few minor instances. --Mrawls 14:30, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I know that and you know that. But if you were to ask microchip what we program in, they'd say PIC C. --Astronouth7303 14:36, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- If you're going to be pedantic like that, we program a Pic 18 series in C using the MPLAB C18 compiler. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter, because it's all so similar. If you were to ask Microchip what we program in, they'd say C. They'd only specify the differences if you asked them about something where the differences matter.
According to the previous discussion, I've moved the articles dealing with Robot Controller to proper noun form. I'm addressing the links to these articles, and will try to get the plain text, too. Help would be appreciated, if I've missed anything. Oh, and I assume the same thing will need to be done to Operator interface?--Mrawls 13:15, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Yep --Sciencewhiz 13:24, 23 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Why did you move it? you also mis-capped it. --Astronouth7303 21:39, 20 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- FRC can be confused with FIRST robotics competition and I think RC/Robot controller is more common than FRC. It's possible the caps aren't wrong, depends whether RC is proper or not. --Max 00:00, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- All titles should be capitalized, but Robot Controller is also a proper noun in this case, as far as I remember. -- Maddie
- I do agree with the new title (I stuck with the old because it was there and, like a great programmer, I am lazy). However, all titles should not be capitalized, -- see FIRSTwiki:Style guide. If you like it that way, we can discuss it there, but it currently is against our style manual. And Robot Controller is not a proper noun, so far as I see it, so I think Programming the robot controller would be best. --Mrawls 11:57, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Robot Controller is a proper noun, used in this case. IFI capitalizes it in all of their documentation, as well. --Sciencewhiz 13:06, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I stand corrected. And now quite a few articles have to be adjusted. Also, I suppose Robot controller should redirect to Robot Controller ... A clarification, though: you say "in this case". Is it always a proper noun, or only when a specific version is referred to? This doesn't refer to a specific version, so I guess I should ask, when is it not a proper noun. --Mrawls 14:38, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Meaning refering to IFI's Robot Controller, not to a robot controller that, say, I designed. --Sciencewhiz 15:33, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- So are we all in agreement? Change all Robot controller articles to Robot Controller? --Max 16:20, 21 Jun 2004 (EDT)
"Robot controller (2003)" ah, yes, even better name for it, time to change some links --Max 22:25, 28 May 2004 (EDT)
- New style suggestion for all: Make a general page first, then make pages with titles like "[General title here] ([specific year])" --SilverStar 22:27, 28 May 2004 (EDT)
- I'm going to change the Team pages like that also. --SilverStar 22:27, 28 May 2004 (EDT)
- Are you going to use "Full RC" or "Robot Controller"? I set all my pages up as 200# Full RC or EDU bot --Astronouth7303 22:32, 28 May 2004 (EDT)
Under the comments section, the second bullet in the list at the bottom says something about being able to have multi-line comments without adding '/*' at the beginning of each line. Shouldn't that be moved up with the C-style comments and make it '//' instead? Confusing. :) Good work on this though --Texan 15:49, 8 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Your right. Let me clarify here.
If you were to use only C style comments, some code might look llike this:
DoSomething(); /* Does something */ DoSomethingElse(); /* Does something else */ DoSomethingNovel(); /* Does something novel */
But if you wanted to comment it out, it would now look like:
/* DoSomething(); /* Does something */ /* DoSomethingElse(); /* Does something else */ /* DoSomethingNovel(); /* Does something novel */
If you were to use C++ comments, it would be:
DoSomething(); // Does something DoSomethingElse(); // Does something else DoSomethingNovel(); // Does something novel
Now commenting the block out would be:
/* DoSomething(); // Does something DoSomethingElse(); // Does something else DoSomethingNovel(); // Does something novel */
Get it? --Astronouth7303 16:27, 8 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- That was a clarification?!? :P Are you saying that C++ style comments are useful because they allow you to comment out blocks of code which include line comments (since C style comments cannot be nested)? We really need some sort of
tags that cause some sort of table/box to separate code and preserve line breaks, etc., to make this easier to read.Well look at that, we do have code tags. I inadvertnatly stumbled upon them ... --Mrawls 16:43, 8 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Sorry, there was a slight error with the second block.
- Yes, that's what the second bullet in the article is saying. Also, You can't forget to end a comment. --Astronouth7303 17:15, 8 Jun 2004 (EDT)
