Subject:
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Re: intro and question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sun, 16 Jun 2002 20:43:19 GMT
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Original-From:
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Steve Baker <SJBAKER1@AIRMAIL.NETnospam>
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Reply-To:
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sjbaker1@airmailAVOIDSPAM.net
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Viewed:
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1129 times
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Laura O'Grady wrote:
> I have been semi-lurking on the list for a few months, with the occasional
> post. I have only recently gotten into Mindstorms and wanted to ask about
> moving on to another language to program the RCX with. I have no
> programming skills whatsoever so I am requesting the sage advice of the
> list on which direction I should go.
Well, without doubt the most popular programming language for RCX (apart
of the original Lego software) is NQC. It's easiest to use and most
commonly seen - which means there are the most people out there to help
you.
However, if you really have no programming skills - and you need
to learn - then you should ask yourself whether you should be learning
on such a strange setup as a Lego robot at all.
Learning to program on an 'embedded system' like a robot is really much
harder than learning on a conventional computer system because the only
way you have to see what's going on is by looking at what the motors
do in response to the sensors. When your program isn't working, that's
a hard way to figure out what's going on. With more conventional
programming environments, you have software to trace the execution of
your program, look at the values of the variables, stop and start it,
that kind of thing. You can also have your program tell you where it's
executing by putting 'print' statements inside it.
If I were you, I'd start learning with a normal implementation of the
C programming language - for which there are a lot of books you can
pick up that specifically teach 'ab-initio' programming. Once you have
mastered that, it's a very small step into NQC and programming the RCX.
I you use Windows on your PC, then there are several free implementations
of the C language 'Ming' and 'CygWin' being two examples that I know of.
> So now I am considering purchasing either "Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to
> LEGO Mindstorms" to learn NQC or "Core LEGO MINDSTORMS Programming: Unleash
> the Power of the Java Platform" by Brian Bagnall to learn JAVA. I just
> ran a quick search and found this interesting article called
> "Ada/Mindstorms 3.0: A Computational Environment for Introductory Robotics
> and Programming" (found at
> http://www.faginfamily.net/barry/Papers/IEEERA.htm). In this article the
> author advises that NQC is difficult for the novice programmer to learn and
> use.
Well, it's a heck of a lot easier than Ada! I think NQC is by far the easiest
language to get started with - *IF* you insist on trying to learn programming
in such a constrained and quirky environment as a robotic controller.
Learning to program by working on an embedded processor like RCX
is a bit like learning to drive a car by starting off driving a forklift
truck!
> So now I am concerned about going the NQC route. Maybe I should try this
> Ada/Mindstorms software. Any thoughts?
I strongly advise against the Ada route. NQC is probably 100 times more
popular in the Lego Robotics community.
> Also what is the relationship between RcxCC and NQC? Thanks.
I don't use RcxCC - but I believe it's just a 'cute' interface
to the NQC compiler. You might find it helps - but according to the web
site, it's not being maintained anymore and I don't think it works with
RIS 2.0.
----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: intro and question
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| (...) I have to disagree strongly. Learning to program is hard, irrespective of the system. Whether the system is embedded or not doesn't effect the control structures, data structures, and algorithms that a programmer must learn. I learned on a (...) (22 years ago, 16-Jun-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | intro and question
|
| Hello everyone! I have been semi-lurking on the list for a few months, with the occasional post. I have only recently gotten into Mindstorms and wanted to ask about moving on to another language to program the RCX with. I have no programming skills (...) (22 years ago, 16-Jun-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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