[ros-users] Request for guidance

Morgan Quigley mquigley at cs.stanford.edu
Tue Jul 6 05:19:32 UTC 2010


Hi Sam,

> 1.- What is the recommended Linux-based code editor and compiler to use with
> ROS?

that's a bit of a flamewar-starting question among Linux coders :)
The compiler question is easy; that's usually gcc/g++ on linux. As to
editors, there are lots of reasonable options. Personally, I use vim,
but many (most?) people use emacs with good results; it's a bit
fancier. Some people use gedit for a more GUI-like experience. There
are also fully-GUI editors out there, such as Eclipse, that are more
like Visual Studio in terms of appearance and features. ROS is often
run on headless machines in robots, however, and in such cases you'll
find that console-based editors like vim or emacs are much faster.
Beware that vim or emacs have steep learning curves, especially when
compared to user-friendly tools like Visual Studio or XCode. However,
the interwebs are full of excellent tutorials to learn them.

> 2- Is there a recommended Linux-based C++ IDE to use? Should I even use an
> IDE? (Code::Block?)

Not really. The command-line tools in Linux/UNIX are fantastic, and
well worth your while to learn. However, some folks have worked on
making ROS and Eclipse play nicer. More info here:
http://www.ros.org/wiki/IDEs

> 3- Are 2 monitors recommended instead of one?

more pixels are always better :)

> 4- What did, or currently do the original developers of ROS use as their
> software development setup?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I usually work with lots of
consoles on my screen, filled with either running programs or
text-editor sessions. I think many (if not most) other people work
this way as well. For me, the main benefit is that it looks and feels
the same regardless if things are running on my local machine or on a
headless machine on a robot or server somewhere.

I'm sure others can chime in here as well; this is just one data point.

-mq


On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Sam Quintanar <robosq at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Coming from a Microsoft Robotics Studio Windows-based development world, I'd
> like some guidance concerning my robotics development setup on an Ubuntu
> computer.
> I'm migrating from Windows to Ubuntu for robotics purposes and I've never
> used a Linux system.
> I'd like to start out with good choices concerning development tools (for
> C/C++ (?!)).
> I'm certain the original ROS developers have a certain setup and I wouldn't
> mind replicating that setup.
> I scanned the ROS Developers Guide (nice!), but I need to know:
> 1.- What is the recommended Linux-based code editor and compiler to use with
> ROS?
>
> (Emacs with Emacs Code Browser (http://ecb.sourceforge.net/) and CEDET
> (http://cedet.sourceforge.net/) ?)
>
> 2- Is there a recommended Linux-based C++ IDE to use? Should I even use an
> IDE? (Code::Block?)
> 3- Are 2 monitors recommended instead of one?
> 4- What did, or currently do the original developers of ROS use as their
> software development setup?
>
> Thank you for your help with my newbie request.
>
> Sam Q.
>
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