D client for ROS

[thinwybk]

On Sunday, 17 December 2017 at 14:16:14 UTC, Johan Engelen wrote:
> On Wednesday, 22 November 2017 at 22:16:12 UTC, thinwybk wrote:
>
> Andrei thought it could be a good GSoC project.
> It may take a bit of effort to define the project such that the 
> D community at large can benefit from it. I'm thinking about 
> possible additions to dub/other tool to support a more complex 
> build setup like ROS is using; but perhaps it is not needed 
> with D's more advanced capabilities in comparison to C++.

That sounds great. I believe that ROS2 could be a door opener for 
D into the technical domain (beginning in robotics and 
automotive). ROS2 is considered a real alternative in industry 
and automotive. (In comparison to ROS1 which needs heavy 
modification to be suitable for these domains.) A lot of C++ 
programmers could discover D as an easier to use, more productive 
and more reliable programming language to implement components 
for these systems. D as system programming language has the 
potential to address low to mid level needs like high-performance 
code (ROS C++ client) as well as high level needs like 
interfacing to machine learning frameworks (ROS Python client).

> Shall we schedule a time for an online chat/discussion (slack, 
> gitter, ...) to see how to proceed?  (and discuss tech things 
> like ROS1 or ROS2, step-plan and minimum requirements, ...)
>
> cheers,
>   Johan

Unfortunately from a technological point of view I am not the 
right person to consider I guess :) My background is embedded 
software with strong focus on methodology and C/C++ design in a 
testing context. Right now I am implementing way more Python than 
C++. I am working with ROS1 since half a year or so. It would be 
more valuable to have someone from OSRF 
(https://www.osrfoundation.org/) and/or ROS-Industrial 
(http://rosindustrial.org/) involved. If you don't have contacts 
to ROS-I already: I could introduce you to some ROS-I project 
managers which have very strong technical background in ROS. I 
would love to join the discussion.