
ROS: The Robot Operating System - pmoriarty
http://www.ros.org/about-ros/
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jvanderbot
ROS is great! It's mostly an IPC framework, and very thinly wraps DDS. We use
it extensively for prototyping and simulation at NASA JPL. We even have a
closed-source version that improves many of the shortcomings for real-world
deployment or NASA flight projects. I highly recommend ROS as a starting point
to anyone looking to get into robotics development. [https://www-
robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/showTask.cfm?FuseAct...](https://www-
robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/showTask.cfm?FuseAction=showTask&TaskID=195&tdaID=800024)

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EpicBlackCrayon
Really? I find that ROS is hugely over-complicated.

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lou1306
This. I mean, production-grade robotics _is_ complicated, but using it just
for connecting some Python functions via Pub/Sub is probably overkill... I
guess there are simpler options (Redis maybe?)

(Personally, while working on my master's thesis I tried ROS for some weeks
before switching to V-REP Edu + NumPy + OpenCV. Not saying everybody should do
that, but it worked for me)

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jvanderbot
If you don't need inter-process communications, you don't need ROS.

Caveat: ROS is for research into robotics systems and algorithms. You can pick
up your fav language, write something up, and use a thin IPC library (pub /
sub) to tie it into the ecosystem.

Otherwise, it quickly becomes impossible to share portable modules and code
libraries (all written in different languages, mind you). The alternative:
Sticking to _their_ language and compiling in _their_ library or dealing with
_their_ dependency chain ... is much worse.

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lou1306
> If you don't need inter-process communications, you don't need ROS.

All I'm saying is, there are cases when you do need IPC, but you can do it
without ROS... Surely it brings major benefits wrt. code reuse, but it can
also be quite intimidating for a newcomer. I guess the best way of mastering
it would be working on an existing project and having some experienced user
walk you through it.

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ElijahLynn
ROS has been around for what 'feels like' at least 10 years now. I remember
seeing it a long time ago with a robot that was doing something with a sock.

I don't have any opinion on it, just wanted to state that it isn't new, which
may be good, stability FTW!!!

