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Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

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Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#21

Post by jefft255 »

ssivark wrote: post #15
jefft255 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true, the reason for choosing C++ and Python as first class languages is because of their strength in numerical computing and AI capabilities (for python anyway), which erlang mostly lacks. It would definitely be cool to be able to use erlang though.

No offense (I use Python all the time), but Python seems almost like the worst of all worlds, except for ease of use in the first month of using it -- with its only advantage being library inertia (which is a massive advantage in practice though). As eg: here's an excellent talk on the cruft in Python internals by Armin Ronacher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGofLIzX6g For more discussion on why Python is slow: h…

When I say Python is good for numerical computing and AI, what I really mean is that the libraries are there. I share the same reservation as you about the language itself. I wasn't so clear in my comment above

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#22

Post by rmattes »

danbmil99 wrote: post #19
rmattes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never tried it, so I don't know how easy it is, but there has been a lot of work recently to improve ROS on Windows: https://microsoft.github.io/Win-RoS-Landing-Page/

Why?

Why haven't I tried ROS on Windows? I never really had the need to, I primarily use Linux at home and work.

I did briefly evaluate ROS 2 (ardent) on Windows at my previous job. It seemed to work fairly well, I built it natively, ran the demos and did some latency/throughput comparisons between DDS implementations.

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#23

Post by abalaji »

I brought ROS to FIRST robotics back when I was in high school and I still think it continues to change the game for how people work with robots [1, 2] The modularity / plug-n-play nature of the system makes swapping sensors (which often have ROS driver) or algorithms that much easier.

[1] https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc [2] https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/paper-team-900-presents-zebrav...

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#24

Post by Iv »

carapace wrote: post #2

I was reading up on ROS the other day when the thought occurred that Erlang is, in many ways, similar to some of the core functionality of ROS, and might be a good substitute for [parts of] it.

To be honest, ROS came in to offer a good balance between modularity, freedom of design and standardization. What it tries to do is not rocket science: make different package communicate using a pre-agreed packet format, and can be done in many languages.

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#25

Post by isatty »

ssivark wrote: post #15
jefft255 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true, the reason for choosing C++ and Python as first class languages is because of their strength in numerical computing and AI capabilities (for python anyway), which erlang mostly lacks. It would definitely be cool to be able to use erlang though.

No offense (I use Python all the time), but Python seems almost like the worst of all worlds, except for ease of use in the first month of using it -- with its only advantage being library inertia (which is a massive advantage in practice though). As eg: here's an excellent talk on the cruft in Python internals by Armin Ronacher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGofLIzX6g For more discussion on why Python is slow: h…

I disagree. I think that the use of Python in ROS is the best of both worlds. ROS makes it easy to do sane-ish IPC even for folks new to programming and enables them to offload heavy numerical processing or real time tasks out to C++ or even other boards on your robot.

Python sits by handling state machines (decision making) and similar logic. It’s also great in experimental code that folks want to change often (opencv prototyping).

I don’t like the lack of a type system and have run into easily preventable bugs with python but in my case the trade off with developer productivity was worth it.

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#26

Post by isatty »

jefft255 wrote: post #7
carapace wrote: post #2

I was reading up on ROS the other day when the thought occurred that Erlang is, in many ways, similar to some of the core functionality of ROS, and might be a good substitute for [parts of] it.

It’s true, the reason for choosing C++ and Python as first class languages is because of their strength in numerical computing and AI capabilities (for python anyway), which erlang mostly lacks. It would definitely be cool to be able to use erlang though.

Honestly, the language that I'd love get first class support for on ROS2 would be Rust. Robotics really needs type and memory safety while maintaining performance and I personally feel like Rust is the perfect fit.

I'd also love to see a mature linear algebra library in Rust (benchmarked to and as easy to use as Eigen).

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#27

Post by a_t48 »

ROS is really great for getting started with robotics, but from my experience (and from others who I've talked to) tends to buckle under its own weight in larger projects. This isn't to say you shouldn't use it, just be careful with it. It has some really questionable design decisions and implementation details that can bite you later.

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#29

Post by Animats »

Iv wrote: post #24
carapace wrote: post #2

I was reading up on ROS the other day when the thought occurred that Erlang is, in many ways, similar to some of the core functionality of ROS, and might be a good substitute for [parts of] it.

To be honest, ROS came in to offer a good balance between modularity, freedom of design and standardization. What it tries to do is not rocket science: make different package communicate using a pre-agreed packet format, and can be done in many languages.

Right. It started as a DARPA-funded effort to get more of the DARPA-funded robotics research projects to talk to each other in some useful way. It's clunky, like CORBA or OLE, but useful.

Re: Robotics Development Environment with ROS in C++ and Python

#30

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

a_t48 wrote: post #27

ROS is really great for getting started with robotics, but from my experience (and from others who I've talked to) tends to buckle under its own weight in larger projects. This isn't to say you shouldn't use it, just be careful with it. It has some really questionable design decisions and implementation details that can bite you later.

Isn't this the case with any Python development in general? Once you start building at scale you'll be forced to use Cython extensions and other non-native python code.
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