The LV2010 IDE

[mje]

Hi all,

Just wondering what your opinions are on the 2010 integrated development environment?

I'm loving some of the new 2010 features, but the stability of the IDE has left me...unsatisfied. I'm not (yet) contemplating going back to 2009 for my main development needs, but the 2010 platform leaves me a bit uneasy when I think about starting large projects on it. I only develop on two systems (XP and Win7), but they seem to persist across both platforms.

One of the first things I did when I got 2010 is start to design a version 2 of a reuse library I've been waiting on. Some issues that I haven't been able to pin down but happen to me several times a day:

• In the project explorer, classes/libraries often complain of unsaved members when there are none.
• Also in the project explorer, items removed from classes/libraries get removed from the list, only to somehow stay attached to the class/lib and often reappear. Seems related to point above, often when trying to save new items (say a new method), the class will complain there are other unsaved items, I'll get prompted, and have the old item reappear in the explorer.
• Editing the icons of nested classes/libraries is a complete crapshoot. Pretty much have to move any item to the top project level (outside of any containing library) if I want to edit the correct icon. This does not happen with VIs, but for classes nested in libraries, editing the class icon seems impossible if the class is contained.
• The whole IDE has crashed several times on me while trying to save. No error reports, no investigation when starting up the next time, nothing. IDE just vanishes. Work gone. Worried I'll eventually get corrupt VIs from this.

I'm trying my best to be analytical about these things so I can pin down examples of what triggers the behaviors and send examples to NI, but so far I'm coming up empty.

-m

[shoneill]

I already find 2009 to be less than it should stability-wise. This news about 2010 makes me wary.

If I may plug an idea of mine on the dark side....

Shane

[PaulG.]

• The whole IDE has crashed several times on me while trying to save. No error reports, no investigation when starting up the next time, nothing. IDE just vanishes. Work gone. Worried I'll eventually get corrupt VIs from this.

I'm trying my best to be analytical about these things so I can pin down examples of what triggers the behaviors and send examples to NI, but so far I'm coming up empty.

I have had a really bad feeling about NI's attempt to have yearly version releases since the 2009 "Service Pack".

What you are doing is beta testing. I did some beta testing on 2010 and found a bug in less than an hour. Sounds like Marketing and Management has taken over at NI.

"Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat".

Analytical? You're a bigger man than I. I would be fuming.

[Rob Calhoun]

• The whole IDE has crashed several times on me while trying to save. No error reports, no investigation when starting up the next time, nothing. IDE just vanishes. Work gone. Worried I'll eventually get corrupt VIs from this.

I haven't had stability problems with LV 2010, but I've only just started using it. (I'm hoping it is ok, because I for one would really like to get a functional Suspend When Called again!)

This "silent crashing" behavior started with LV 2009, and boy is it irritating. We eventually traced one cause of this to an excessively long type descriptor inside a class, but it was very difficult to track it down because of the total absence of failure logs.

[PaulG.]

... This "silent crashing" behavior started with LV 2009, and boy is it irritating ... but it was very difficult to track it down because of the total absence of failure logs.

:angry: :angry:

[mje]

Agreed, I'd say the crash is the most annoying.

I've learned to always create a class icon as soon as I make the class, such that it never requires editing again to work around the bug where you can't edit nested library icons. Still very annoying though.

[Antoine Chalons]

This "silent crashing" behavior started with LV 2009, and boy is it irritating.

We're still using 8.6 and we're now looking to upgrade.

Personally I really don't mind having a few crashes a day but ONLY if when I get one I have a cool "crash report" feature that lets me send a few words to the editor and then create a cool blog like this one http://log.maniacalrage.net/tagged/cscr

[PaulG.]

We're still using 8.6 and we're now looking to upgrade.

I would stick with 8.6 for now. Trust me. My latest app is in 2009 and I experience multiple crashes daily. Thank God someone at NI thought up the brilliant "Recover" after a crash back in the day of 8.0? 8.20?

I am STILL extremely concerned that 2009 required a "Service Pack". My multiple daily crashes only fuel my anxiety.

I was was very comfortable with 8.6. I beat the hell out it daily for over a year and had little (if any) issues.

My client recently received his upgrade to LV 2010 and I told him: "absolutely NOT".

[jgcode]

We're still using 8.6 and we're now looking to upgrade.

Personally I really don't mind having a few crashes a day but ONLY if when I get one I have a cool "crash report" feature that lets me send a few words to the editor and then create a cool blog like this one http://log.maniacalr...net/tagged/cscr

Love it!

Add that to the Idea Exchange!

[Antoine Chalons]

Add that to the Idea Exchange!

Done!

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Crash-report/idc-p/1222062#M7162

[Aristos Queue]

I am STILL extremely concerned that 2009 required a "Service Pack". My multiple daily crashes only fuel my anxiety.

Every version of LabVIEW going back at least to 3.0 has had a bug fix release. There's nothing new about the 2009 one except that we called it a service pack. It's curious that you mention 8.6's stability. By the CAR count, 2009 was more stable than 8.6. But these sorts of things are subjective to the parts of LabVIEW that affect you daily, so different customers may have experiences that vary greatly from the objective count.

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

[jgcode]

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

Given NI's new annual software release schedule, I for one am more than happy with hearing this news.

This is one large feature that affects my everyday work flow - so its great that time and resources will be focused on this area.

[Antoine Chalons]

It's curious that you mention 8.6's stability. By the CAR count, 2009 was more stable than 8.6. But these sorts of things are subjective to the parts of LabVIEW that affect you daily, so different customers may have experiences that vary greatly from the objective count.

Really true.

And when someone's happy with one version, there has to be some good reasons in terms of feature to move to a newer version, not just the fun to have the latest version.

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

That's a great piece of news!

[shoneill]

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

This is the best thing I've heard about LV in quite a while.

Great stuff.

[crossrulz]

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

I'll take stability over fancy new toys any day!

[Thang Nguyen]

Hi,

While I am working with 2010, LabVIEW had suddenly closed for 3 times then I decided to uninstall it. I guess next time I will update only after they have SP version.

[Aristos Queue]

Hi,

While I am working with 2010, LabVIEW had suddenly closed for 3 times then I decided to uninstall it. I guess next time I will update only after they have SP version.

A) Definitely NOT the experience we hope our customers get.

B) Please take a moment to post on forums.ni.com the bug reports on what you were doing when it closed.

[PaulG.]

Every version of LabVIEW going back at least to 3.0 has had a bug fix release.

Of course. I've been around since LV 5.

There's nothing new about the 2009 one except that we called it a service pack.

But it was not free.

It's curious that you mention 8.6's stability. By the CAR count, 2009 was more stable than 8.6. But these sorts of things are subjective to the parts of LabVIEW that affect you daily, so different customers may have experiences that vary greatly from the objective count.

8.6 didn't need a "service pack" that required a fee or yearly service agreement. Maybe I didn't bang on 8.6 hard enough, and my app now with 2009 is shared variable intensive. However, shared variables to me are vanilla, bread-and-butter LV functions and should not give me any more trouble than anything else - but they have.

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

Finally. After all these new releases. Count me in the group of "customers". Good. Thanks.

I rest my case.

[PaulL]

8.6 didn't need a "service pack" that required a fee or yearly service agreement. Maybe I didn't bang on 8.6 hard enough, and my app now with 2009 is shared variable intensive. However, shared variables to me are vanilla, bread-and-butter LV functions and should not give me any more trouble than anything else - but they have.

In 8.6 Developer Suite subscribers received quarterly updates with bug fix releases. Those were essentially the same as Service Packs except NI didn't call them that then. The main thing is now NI has stated the plan is to do a major release and a service pack each year.

[xtal]

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

Yes! This is pretty much the only thing you could have said that will make me upgrade from 8.6 -- and have me urging the other 10 LV users in my plant to do the same. Thanks for the great news!

[Ton Plomp]

Every version of LabVIEW going back at least to 3.0 has had a bug fix release. There's nothing new about the 2009 one except that we called it a service pack. It's curious that you mention 8.6's stability. By the CAR count, 2009 was more stable than 8.6. But these sorts of things are subjective to the parts of LabVIEW that affect you daily, so different customers may have experiences that vary greatly from the objective count.

In case you haven't heard, LV 2011 is going to be largely a stability release. The entire LV team, acting on requests from customers, is going to pull back on features, focusing on bugs, performance and integration between existing features. There will be very little that is new in LV 2011, but we think customers will want it nonetheless.

I hope the NI LabVIEW sales department didn't went to the Business of Software 2009 conference and saw this (great) speech by Joel Spolsky.

The following still is at 25:31 and I quote:

The correlation between features and sales is

Ton

[John Lokanis]

You might want to know about this bug before you upgrade.

Also, beware of projects that create .NET assemblies.

Oh, and every now and then, my IDE will switch from English to Chinese for no apparent reason.

Edited August 31, 2010 by John Lokanis

[jgcode]

Oh, and every now and then, my IDE will switch from English to Chinese for no apparent reason.

Nice!

I am having the same thing will my builds at the moment (but in LV2009)

I wonder if it is related?

[jcarmody]

I'm experiencing crashes while working with the Probe Watch window.

[SuperS_5]

Sorry for bringing up a old post, but I couldn't find anything similar, and seamed like a good place.

I have been seeing some issues with LV2010, when saving->closing->reopening a VI. Sometimes some objects are moved on the BD and/or the FP. It is very hard to trace down because it appears to be random. Sometimes after loading a VI, things are moved. After fixing, and saving, then reloading, most times it is OK, but sometimes it too has moved objects. It gets really annoying when the BD becomes unreadable, or the FP no longer looks nice.