EDITOR'S EYE

The World of Software Development.

February 2008

Does robotics need or require a special-purpose development environment? Apparently the folks at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Academy think so. Which is why they developed ROBOTC, a programming environment optimized for educational robots.

ROBOTC works with LEGO Mindstorms RCX and NXT, as well as with the Innovation First VEX and FRC controllers. These are the dominant controllers used to teach robotics in today’s classrooms and are also used in a growing number of robot competitions, such as FIRST.

The full-featured environment comes with a C compiler and code templates, a predictive text editor, and interactive debugger. Other features include statistical functions and unlimited undos.
The PC-based debugger works with the robot in wireless mode without slowing the execution of the program being debugged.

The environment lets you quickly interface new peripherals, such as keypads and displays, using accessory prototyping board, and experiment with concurrent thread operation, scheduling algorithms, and the like. You can also analyze, test, and revise wireless networking and cooperation between multiple robots

A free 30-day trial version is available. Both single-user and classroom licenses are available. A version of ROBOTC for use with Qwerk robot controllers is expected later this year. The Qwerk controller was developed jointly by the CREATE Lab in Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute and by Charmed Labs and can be used to build a wide variety of custom robots.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:53 AM  Permalink |

There are two things to cover today:

1. I'd like to ask you to please take a few minutes to participate in Dr. Dobb's 2008 Agile Adoption Survey. Dr. Dobb's columnist Scott Ambler is coordinating the survey which examines the current levels of agile adoption. The survey should take five minutes (or less) to complete and Scott and I thank you in advance for taking time out of your busy day to participate. Respondents who choose to do so will be included in a draw for their choice of one of Scott Ambler's recent books (three respondents will be chosen randomly). Scott will summarize the results of the survey in his June 2008 "Agile Edge" column. Again, please take a few minutes to participate. It really is important to track this stuff. Please let me know if you have any questions.

2. The SD West 2008 get together is less than two weeks away, and I'm already having fun. For starters, I've booked a room at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge -- free parking, free breakfast, and free WiFi. What more can you ask for? Oh, there's a conference too? Well, I'm looking forward to that too. Here's where you'll find me, should you care:

• On Monday night, I'll be moderating a panel about Beautiful Code, you know -- the book that Dr. Dobb's own Gregory Wilson conceived and co-edited and which I praised here. We're getting together as many of the contributors as possible to talk about, well, beautiful code. That's Monday, March 3, from 5:30-6:30 PM.
• Then on Wednesday night, I'll be hosting the annual Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award. This is recipient is .... wait a minute! It is still a secret, so you'll have have to attend. This event is Wednesday, March 5 at 6:30 PM.
• Finally, on Thursday evening, I host the Developer's Bowl, which will pit teams from Intel, Google, IBM, and CodeGear against each other. Both David I and Joshua Bloch promised not to break the buzzers again this year. Promises are cheap, buzzers aren't. That's on Thursday, March 6, at 5:30-6:30 PM.

Keynotes? Who has time to attend keynotes? And did I mention parties? Looking forward to seeing you there.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 05:46 PM  Permalink |

Wait a minute! Make up your mind! For years now, we've been hearing that cell phones and automobiles don't mix (or, as Microsoft might say, they don't Sync up). Now all of a sudden, its okay to have cell phones in your car, at least according to researchers at Nokia and the University of California at Berkeley.

To prove their point, transportation researchers turned the freeway into a testbed, gauging the feasibility of using GPS-enabled cell phones to monitor real-time traffic flow while preserving the privacy of the phones' users. The drivers, all Berkeley students, carried GPS-enabled cell phones that transmitted speed and position information to researchers at a command center, creating a nearly real-time picture of traffic flow.

All in all, 100 vehicles were turned loose onto a 10-mile stretch of I-880 for seven hours, with each car equipped with a Nokia N95 mobile phone running software to periodically send anonymous speed readings from the integrated GPS to servers that then computed traffic conditions. Information was displayed on the Internet, letting viewers visualize traffic in real time. Using the GPS data to estimate prevailing speeds and travel times gave researchers a picture of real-time traffic conditions.

The project was made up of research teams from UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies and the Nokia Research Center. Together they developed the algorithms, software, and architecture of this GPS-based traffic monitoring system. Heading the teams were Berkeley's Alexandre Bayen and Nokia's and Quinn Jacobson. The goal of the test was not only to measure the efficiency of the traffic data collection and aggregation system, but to evaluate the trade-offs between traffic estimation accuracy, personal privacy, and data collection costs.

While there is currently no projected date for commercial launch of a system like that being tested, the benefit are obvious -- and huge. In the U.S. alone, traffic congestion leads to 4.2 billion hours in extra travel time and an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel burned, for a cost of $78 billion, according to a 2007 report from the Texas Transportation Institute.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 01:49 PM  Permalink |

There's been a lot going on with Python--and a lot yet to come. For instance:

• Python was recently declared as the programming language of the year for 2007, according to the TIOBE Index. Python had the largest increase in ratings in one year time (2.04%), passing Perl for the first time suggesting that Python has indeed become the "de facto" glue language at system level.

• PyCon, the annual Python Community Conference, is right around the corner, taking place this year in Chicago on March 14-20, 2008. We'll be covering it.

• The Python Software Foundation has graciously set aside some financial assistance funds for attending PyCon 2008. If you would like to go to PyCon but can't afford it, the PSF may be able to help.

• Python 3000, Python 3.0, and Py3K -- all names for the same thing -- is the language's next big release, and it will officially be cut loose at PyCon.

• In this audio interview, we interview David Goodger, Chair of the PyCon 2008 Developer Conference, who shares his insights about the conference sessions and the upcoming release of Python 3.0.

• Speaking of audio interviews, we also have a chat with Jacob Kaplan-Moss in our Dr. Dobb's TV area. Jacob is the co-author of the Django Project, a very cool Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

• Okay, we haven't published it yet, but Rock Howard is writing what sounds like a really nice Python/django article tentatively entitled "Deploying Personal Django Apps on a Thumb Drive." I look forward to getting it to you.

• As for other Dr. Dobb's Python stuff, Shannon -jj Behrens has written a really interesting article on Concurrency and Python, in which he examines (among other things) Stackless Python, an enhanced version Python for thread-based programming. Don't miss this article.

• To continue with Python news: IronPython 1.1.1 has been released, although admittedly it is a minor update. IronPython is an implementation of Python running on .NET
  

That's it for now, but you can bet there will be a lot more Python news over the next few weeks. And to answer the unasked question, no the "Python" moniker has nothing to do with a snake. (Hint: Think "Monty Python".)

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:32 AM  Permalink |