[ros-users] answers.ros.org is the hell

Yamokoski, JD (JSC-ER)[OCEANEERING SPACE SYSTEMS] john.d.yamokoski at nasa.gov
Mon Feb 18 18:10:34 UTC 2013


On 02/18/2013 03:21 AM, Thibault Kruse wrote:
So specific feedback leads to improved infrastructure.
Are you suggesting my earlier post to the mailing list over a month and a half ago was not specific enough? Was my post wrapped in a rage present? Absolutely. Should I have probably waited 24hrs before hitting send. Maybe. But if this mailing list is only for announcements/general discussion and the ONLY outlet for community support is a site that does not accept your cry for help - you can imagine how frustrating that is.

Speaking of frustrating, have you ever tried using ROS answers to search for anything? Its a joke. I hate to promote anything Microsoft, but this commercial is more appropriate for Askbot than Bing's real competitors:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/bing-commercial-search-overload-cell-phone/qmk62tm0

The only thing that works logically is the tag system -- but even that is inherently flawed as it requires users to tag their own content. Some do that well and others might completely miss the feature.

My specific comments about Groovy: First, how do you release a build system that is ~18x slower than its predecessor? Did anyone go, "hmm, build server is sure taking significantly longer..." or "wow, its taking me 20x longer to do my job"? And if it was noticed how on earth did someone ok it?

http://answers.ros.org/question/54688/why-is-groovys-rosmake-so-slow/
http://answers.ros.org/question/53925/rospack-became-agonizingly-slow/#53946

This has already been addressed and I believe there is even a ticket, but that is appalling. That, by itself, would have kept me from releasing catkin.

This is a bit of an edge case as I know it doesn't effect a lot of ROS users, but right now, and I don't think I am reading between the lines, the advice from the Orocos project is to stick with Fuerte if you are an Orocos user:

http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/pipermail/orocos-users/2013-February/006700.html

You'd have to consult them on what specific issues they are running into. But the long build times plus lack of Orocos support is keeping me from upgrading to it. Which is unfortunate because its not all negative - I think the overhaul to Rviz is great. Much better design/look. But then its the little things. Rviz now supports Python! Great. But then there's no documentation at all on the Python API. It looks, by examining the source, that it was just wrapped by sip. On top of that, the python API goes missing for interactive markers.

http://answers.ros.org/question/54278/what-happened-to-the-python-api-for-interactive-markers/

Answered and fixed, great response. But how does that get overlooked?

Software as complex and as large as ROS will have some bumps and bruises at a major release - but from the outside looking in, it appears as though too much was changed in this release (as evidenced by the above plus the longer than normal release cycle). Sweeping changes are obviously needed to keep up with new use cases or changing requirements. But more care needs to be taken by those in the driver seat. With the size of the ROS community and its popularity, more weight should be given to minimizing disruption rather than favoring the hot new shiny stuff. Disruption breeds discontent - discontent leads to searching for alternatives. And the only way projects like ROS work is with a strong community involvement. For once, one of these component-based approaches to robotics has finally taken off (and history is full of failed previous attempts). I don't want to see it happen again.
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