Are both of C++ and Python necessary in ROS

Question

I'm a newbie on ROS and I'm trying to figure out how ROS works so I'm installing ROS from source.

I've found that most of ROS packages contains two kinds of codes: C++ and Python. For example, here is the architecture of src of the ROS package actionlib:

src/
├── actionlib
│   ├── action_client.py
│   ├── action_server.py
│   ├── exceptions.py
│   ├── goal_id_generator.py
│   ├── handle_tracker_deleter.py
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── server_goal_handle.py
│   ├── simple_action_client.py
│   ├── simple_action_server.py
│   └── status_tracker.py
├── connection_monitor.cpp
└── goal_id_generator.cpp

I'm thinking if I can remove all of python scripts and only cmake && make the c++ files to use the ROS package actionlib?

Answer 1

You can program in ROS using either ROS or Python. It just depends on your preferences. Actually, it is very common to mix both languages to create some programs that run C++ and others that run Python, since they can talk to each other using only the ROS environment (topics, services, messages...).

My advice is that you do not uninstall anything that comes with the default installation unless you are sure that you are not going to use it. For instance, you may have later the problem that you install a third party code that do uses Python.

If you are a newbie to ROS, I recommend you to start learning ROS with Python until you grasp how it works. Then you can move to ROS with C++. Also I recommend you our online academy where you learn ROS in an already setup environment with simulations of robots running. You only need a web browser. Here the link: http://robotignite.academy