[jki275]

I've been in those environments. I've had to try to repair horrific "code" written in it. I've participated in "code reviews" where the straightness of the lines was carefully assessed in the massive mess of spaghetti code they had created and thought was good code.

LabVIEW is a toy for EEs to write prototypes in. That would have been okay if it had stayed there -- but the problem is that people are actually distributing "applications" using it, and trying to maintain them is nearly impossible.

[stinos]

I still don't get why you call it a toy, or just for prototypes. Maybe think somewhat broader and not just about the bad experience(s) you had with it. For the things it's good at, it just works and it's pretty hard to find alternatives (well, Measurement Studio is ok, but for simple things it's usually still a bit more work than Labview). The hard part is figuring out what Labview is good at and not make the mistake of trying to use it for everything. Sound like that's where most of your bad experiences come from.

Here's an example of a place where Labview just shines: I needed something to plot 'rolling' analog and digital signals, i.e. basically provide a visualization of the inputs of a combined analog/digital input card. With ability to pause the thing, each line in a different color, data cursors, ... The data is acquired by C++ code, but since Labview has this stuff built in getting the whole thing up and running is just a matter of setting up a communication protocol between the C++ part and Labview. I just went for TCP/IP and got the thing up and running in a couple of hours. Has been used like that for years now. Not exactly a prototype, nor a toy. It just does this one thing, it's all we needed, and it does it extremely good.

[jki275]

I call it a toy because that's what it is. It's used almost exclusively to bypass doing things the right way. As you highlight quite well with your example.

[stinos]

Well, enlighten us then. What is the right way according to you? In case of my example: what is a better way than getting things done in a few hours, with no bugs whatsoever, with all functionality needed, and just working? I'm actually truly curious as to what would be better and more right.

[jki275]

To begin with, the labview run time is riddled with bugs. Every application I've ever seen written under labview is expected by its creators and its users to crash randomly and continually for no explainable reason.

Yes, drawing out some things in a visual IDE and having it work is nice. The problem is that eventually LabVIEW is going to update their runtime and it won't work anymore. Now what?

Take the time and do it right up front, and then when it needs to be updated people aren't cursing "whoever decided to do this in LabVIEW years ago" as they often do in these situations.

[stinos]

do it right up front,

Ok, but again what do you suggest is 'right' then, any example? Because as laid out, for me, it is right, since we have zero problems.

Every application I've ever seen written under labview is expected by its creators and its users to crash randomly and continually for no explainable reason.

Hmm, strange. Sounds to me like those creators must be doing something wrong. I mean, we've been running a couple of Labview applications for +10 years and I honestly think none of them ever crashed (where 'crash' means suddenly stops working without apparent reason because of a bug in Labview itself, not come to a halt due to programmer error). Also wen to, I don't know, 3 or 4 updates, without much problems. Again I think it just comes down to hwat I said first: the hard part might be fuguring out how to do Labview right, I guess.

[jki275]

Or the labview runtime is absymal and broken and you simply haven't tripped over any of its thousands of broken cases in the minimal use of it you've done.

[alliecat]

I say again; Don't be rude.

Especially don't be mean about other people's environments for the sake of being mean about their environments. Which is what you just did.

[jki275]

It's not "rude", and it's not "mean" to describe something accurately. Using those adjectives is simply projecting your emotions onto a technical discussion.

LabVIEW is a cash cow that NI pushes on schools and junior EEs to make them think they're software developers, it allows them to write horrible cruft that is generally impossible to maintain. In almost every case I've seen, it's actually easier to rewrite the whole mess from scratch rather than try to decipher what someone a decade ago did as a hack that got turned into something people depend on.

You're clearly one of NI's rabid fans, you believe what you believe, but if you take personally criticism of a really poor tool, you know the rest..

I can create things in LabVIEW if I have to, I've done it and I've debugged and rewritten other people's abominations in it as well. The concept of visual programming languages is badly flawed for a variety of reasons and LabVIEW portrays each of them thoroughly.

[detaro]

What's "the right way"? Spending an extra few days on making your own visualization code, throwing away flexibility in the process?

[jki275]

Time spent doing it right up front pays off when someone has to maintain it.