The language hunt

Our programming team is looking to switch languages in the 2020 season. Here is the what, why, and how.

Our history

We started out as a java team back in 2014 because java was (and still is) the language being taught in our programming classes. Honestly, our code sucked, as many rookie team’s do. There where no fancy features, or sensor-assisted autonomous. Direct input into talons was our way to roll.

A few years later, we had a change in team organization and switched to C++. Up until the 2019 / 2020 season, this was our language and we where getting pretty good at using it.

The Problem

We, as a team are looking to bring our programming and robots to the next level in 2020. Because of this, we ran into a problem. While C++ is an amazing language for embedded and robotics programming, some of it’s “features” where starting to act as a bottleneck to our design. Less time was being spent on polishing our new vision system or autonomous climb, and more on that crazy linker error that came out of nowhere.

It’s time for a change, but what do we change to?

Part 2

The followup can be found HERE.