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I have no knowledge in robotics or computer science, and am a windows user. I know a bit of C++. I will have to use ROS for my PhD, and have started learning it. However, so many terms are unknown to me in ROS wiki that I am having a hard time understanding how ROS actually works. How should I overcome this problem
Personally I'd say: computer science is not needed, a (strong) programming background will help tremendously though. "a bit of C++" does sound like that could be improved.
I'd start without any ROS (seeing as you're starting a PhD, you should have some time to ignore ROS for now), but some good tutorials on:
You don't need to be a wizard (so don't overdo looking-for and completing tutorials), but you do need a decent background in these things.
Then look at ROS.
(you could of course always parallelise things, but I've noticed with 'my' students that this can cause them to be overwhelmed by new concepts, and have a hard time properly integrating all the new knowledge).
Finally: understand that software engineering (the art of putting programs / structures together in a logical and maintainable way) is just like any other engineering dicipline:
ROS ideally helps with steps 2 and 4, by making the effects of dividing solutions into smaller parts almost transparent to your program (ie: communication is taken care of for you).
Programming is just a way to encode your solutions in a format that allows them to be executed by a machine -- in this case a computer.
Learning to program is the process of being able to do that.
Thank you very much for the reply. Do you think using Ubuntu regularly will help me get used to the terminology used in ROS ? Do you have any suggestions regarding good Ubuntu tutorials?
I would add CMake to this list, just before starting the ROS tutorials, learning catkin is hard if you don't know CMake.
Thank you everyone. I am really glad to see that so many people are here to help.
I'd suggest reading Programming Robots with ROS by Morgan Quigley. It's an easy read and teaches ROS in python which is significantly more readable than C++. (Also, I believe it was written by developers in OSRF which is nice.)
Once you're familiar with ROS workflow and concepts you can easily switch to C++.
Thank you very much. I have started to read the book. But the problem is mainly with keywords. The book also uses some keywords that I do not understand.
I just started it yesterday, and now reading catkin, Workspaces, and ROS Packages. So, it says catkin is ROS ''building system''. I could not for example understand what it means to be a building system (which the book defines as the set of tools that ROS uses to generate executable programs)
And that is why I suggested learning about programming, building/compiling programs and all that comes with programming in modern languages first. That way you can get comfortable with that terminology (ie: keywords) and then ROS documentation/books will start to make a lot more sense.
If you are a novice and want to learn ROS, then you first need to learn how the Linux shell works and then, you must learn how to create programs in Python (in that order).
Linux is required to manage the creation, compilation and launching of ROS programs. You do not need to master everything in Linux, but some basic concepts. We have created a free Linux For Robotics online course where we teach those concepts, applied to robotics. I recommend you to do it.
Once you know about Linux, then you must learn to create programs either in C++ or in Python. ROS can be programmed in any of those languages, but if you are a novice, then I strongly recommend that you start by learning Python and then learn ROS using Python only. That is the fastest and simplest way to master ROS. We have also created a free online course about Python For Robotics, that I highly recommend you.
The previous two subjects are quite simple, so don't be scared, you will learn them very quickly.
Hope this helps. As a final comment, I would like to mention that the key component to learn ROS is by practicing. Just reading text, watching a video or reading code will not make you understand later why a ROS program is not working as it should. So I recommend you to focus on practice.
Asked: 2018-04-12 02:17:11 -0600
Seen: 2,156 times
Last updated: Sep 30 '19
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