[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [Next Generation ROS] Design By Contract

[Geoffrey Biggs]

[quote="fkromer, post:5, topic:2405"]
Unfortunatelly I do not know much about IDL as well right now. From a conceptional point of view the possiblility for static checking considering a single source of specification should be favored. Considering the static behaviour of the node interface only the IDL seems suiteable for me. What do you mean if it is going to be node specific exactly? In case of exotic node topic message types?
[/quote]

This relates to the way the message definition language is used in ROS. It defines data types, not node interfaces. Contracts are much more likely to be specific to node interfaces than to the messages, which are intended to be generic and highly reusable. Because ROS doesn't currently have a node interface definition language, there is not yet a suitable place to specify contracts.

Furthermore, some contracts may be specific to a particular implementation of a node, and so wouldn't fit in a node interface specification intended to be reused by many different implementations (although then I would argue that the nodes with different contracts should not be considered interchangeable and so should be using different interfaces).





---
[Visit Topic](https://discourse.ros.org/t/design-by-contract/2405/13) or reply to this email to respond.