Re: [Playerstage-users] Strange connection problem

[Radu B. R. <ru...@cs...>]

Fred Labrosse wrote:

>On Wednesday 01 Mar 2006 21:03, Radu Bogdan Rusu wrote:
>  
>
>>Heya,
>>
>>ff...@ab... wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On the other hand,
>>>it seems that we might have to upgrade anyway because of problems related
>>>to the camera interface and javaClient.
>>>      
>>>
>>Can you elaborate please ? I thought I fixed the camera already in
>>1.6.5's CVS.
>>    
>>
>
>I'm not sure yet.  One of my students is having problems accessing data from 
>the camera using the javaClient and I have seen in archives on its mailing 
>list that there is a bug in the version (of javaClient) we are using and that 
>it is fixed in version 2.  So I don't know yet if the problems are on 
>player's side or javaClient's side, although there is evidence for the latter 
>(http://www.nabble.com/More-JavaClient-camera-woes-t1074571.html#a2820150).
>
>And I tend to stay away from CVS (not just javaClient's) because I need 
>something stable that will work so that students (and myself) don't loose too 
>much time with that.
>  
>
While that is the general case with commercial and/or very complex 
software packages, things are a little bit different here. At least for 
me personally (and I think I speak for the other Player/Stage/Gazebo 
developers as well), it is very difficult to create software packages 
(eg. tar-gzip, etc) after every bug that we fix. One solution would be 
nightly tarballs at SF (anybody considers them useful enough?).

That is why the best chance of getting rid of some bugs (that will 
inevitably be there), is staying up to date on the mails sent to the 
mailing list, and using the software from CVS. At least for Javaclient, 
the CVS version is *ALWAYS* more stable and prone to less bugs, than the 
official releases that I make.

 From my experience, it's the same with Player/Stage too, unless a big 
change happens (eg. 2.x API), or otherwise noted on the mailing lists.

Besides, using Javaclient from CVS is *really* straightforward... you 
have nothing but the source files (.java) which you can copy over the 
old ones or view for differences (in case you are searching for a 
specific bug fix). I also tend to submit comments such as what bugs 
where fixed when I commit changes to the repository, so that should help 
even more in finding a specific bug.

>  
>
>>>Could you please advise on the amount of work involved in modifying
>>>existing code to make it work with player-2?
>>>      
>>>
>>Are we talking Javaclient-wise here?
>>    
>>
>
>Both.  I have seen the page on player's differences, but reading it quickly 
>yesterday left me with the feeling that it was mostly intended for much lower 
>level programmers than we are.  I'll give it a try on another machine using 
>player and stage to have some idea.
>  
>
While a lot of things changed "underneath", the differences between the 
user applications for 1.x and 2.x shouldn't be that big. The name of the 
methods stayed the same, some data structures have been changed (it will 
be easier to work with them) and new commands/requests have been added. 
Overall, it is a very healthy change (I think) for the whole system.

>  
>
>>If so, I will port the examples and 
>>prepare an e-mail with the differences between 1.6.5 and 2.0 from a Java
>>POV soon.
>>    
>>
>
>That would be great.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Fred
>  
>
One last mention would be that, I would appreciate if people would send 
bug reports when something doesn't work as it should (eg. the camera 
problem with Javaclient). We all want to "stabilize" the platform as 
soon as possible so we can go on and build other things on top of it. I 
realize that Javaclient might have had some bugs in the past, but we're 
certainly getting rid of them faster if we all cooperate, no? ;) Don't 
be afraid to submit a bug report, this is a very friendly community! :)

Best regards,
Radu.

-- 
| Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/
| http://www9.cs.tum.edu/people/rusu/
| Intelligent Autonomous Systems
| Technische Universitaet Muenchen