hi, I've dabbled in robotics from a hobbyist perspective, and I've gotten as far as installing ROS and following some tutorial and online courses a few times.
I agree with what you said about launcher/ipc/config - my plan if I ever use Ros is to keep it in a box and use my own communication layer to connect with things in various environments (rather than trying to solve incompatible conda environments).
however one thing you've missed, which may well be the biggest offer from Ros and the reason why I haven't sworn off it entirely is the library of robotics functionality such as SLAM and various planning algorithms.
in your opinion, are these at least well implemented? would they be easy to rip out and run separately?
My suggestion: start with ROS, but make absolutely sure to separate ROS from your “business intelligence“. The one think I hate from ROS, is that it makes it difficult. But keep them separated. Also the launch IPC and config parts, don’t do them dependent from each other. If possible do not rely on launcher. So later you can switch away if needed. And you will need. ROS is great for prototyping, changing things, development. But is just not for deploying in production. The whole possibility of inspecting the messages between nodes, means you have to pay a price.
> in your opinion, are these at least well implemented? would they be easy to rip out and run separately?
Not a simple answer:
- from the architecture pov i think many questionable decisions were made: you need to master many languages: XML, launch, message files, yaml, python or C, Cmakefiles for catkin… why?! Why not making launcher files, messages all just yaml or json? Just too complex for nothing.
- The code, you can look yourself, is write only. No way you can change anything without needing 1 year understanding…
- BUT: it does work, and works well. I’ve not found a kill bug or something. So, I guess is ok.
I agree with what you said about launcher/ipc/config - my plan if I ever use Ros is to keep it in a box and use my own communication layer to connect with things in various environments (rather than trying to solve incompatible conda environments).
however one thing you've missed, which may well be the biggest offer from Ros and the reason why I haven't sworn off it entirely is the library of robotics functionality such as SLAM and various planning algorithms.
in your opinion, are these at least well implemented? would they be easy to rip out and run separately?