How to use VEX Threads

[jpearman]

@UvuvwevweOnyetenye

why does no one really use multi threading that much? Is there a downside to it in some way, or is it jsut not really useful for normal vex stuff?

A good question, and I’m not sure I know the answer.

It may just be that the best coders don’t ask questions or post their code here.

It may be that there’s too much reliance on using blocks and some of the methods that blocks forces to you to use don’t translate that well to using text.

IMHO, there is no downside to using multi threading if used appropriately.

I find it useful for normal VEX programming, for example, separating the display of status on the V5 screen from code controlling motors. But then I wrote the scheduler that VEXcode uses so I’m biased

There used to be much more discussion about using threads (or tasks as we called them in the RobotC days) on the forum, I wrote some long explanations about that in this topic.

RobotC programming tips

So it was always inevitable that this thread would discuss multi-tasking at some point. RobotC’s ability to run more than one task is IMHO it’s greatest strength, there has been lot’s written describing multi-tasking in it’s different forms but when dealing with RobotC I like to think of it as the ability to run more than one independent program at a time even though these programs are contained within one executable and downloaded together. For some background reading on multi-tasking, wikipe…

and I used to post far more example code than I do these days, part of that is not having the time, but it’s also due to the student centered policy, too many students just cut and paste code without understanding how it works, so I backed off on doing that as much. But that means that on the forum students are not being exposed to as many advanced examples as we used to have in years past.