Broader Programming Exposure

One of the many issues of this project has been that ¾ of the team has had little or no experience with a UNIX operating system. This has caused great difficulties in development and also testing. Therefore, one of the conclusions that we have made from this project is that the Computer Science Department should offer (or compel) its students to have broader exposure to other operating systems and development environments.

Real Time Programming

Another issue that has come up is Real Time Programming (RTP). Real Time does not necessarily mean “very-fast.” However, it does tell us that the order (sequence) in which events occur are important. In some cases, pauses between modules would block the other module from acquiring shared resources such as the laser, gripper, and camera. While these issues are considered in the 414 operating systems class, more could be added to help with this topic as it affects almost all large scale programming.