[ros-users] ROS usability (was: ROS & DDS)

[Thibault Kruse]

Hi Ryan,

> On ROS usability itself, the largest thing which has come up has been the
> renewed difficulty in getting started. Even though new users are no longer
> being thrown into the middle of the rosmake/catkin transition, the
> overhead in creating a new package has increased dramatically.
> [...]
> Another point: ROS used to be three steps for a full install: (key,
> update,
> install), and now you need to jump through hoops for rosdep and other
> "noncritical yet required" items.
>
> Something else which is important to note is that the purpose of all of
> those above steps are easily explainable to someone who knows nothing
> about ROS at all, which is certainly not the case now. (ex. "Why do I
have to
> specify basic ROS dependencies in three different locations?", "Why do I
> need to set up build instructions for a script I intend to run in place?")

So do these issues have a significant business impact at Clearpath
Robotics, such that decisions are made against ROS and for some other
technology because of this? Or maybe product shipment is delayed, proof of
concepts fail, etc.?

The opposite view is that to industry stakeholders, usability does not
matter much.

cheers,
  Thibault