I was struck by a number of things at NI Week 2013 but one in particular I want to comment on. Nancy Hollenbeck did a marvelous job of presenting on FGVs, Action Engines and DVRs. It was really a great presentation but I did have a thought about one aspect of what she presented.
Nancy drew a distinction between FGVs and Action Engines, essentially pointing out that a "bare" FGV is really just a global and, therefore, doesn't protect against race conditions, etc, etc. From that perspective an Action Engine is an FGV that, because of its "Solitron" like structure does preclude race conditions. OK, fair enough and clear; however, I had a different thought.
FWIW I think we should call a "Nancy" FGV a DGV means a DYSFunctional Global Variable because it has ALL of the liabilities of a global AND is far, far slower to execute. That would allow us to agree that a FGV is an Action engine BECAUSE it is functional, etc, etc.
OK, I do get into semantics at times so I apologize and Nancy it really was a fabulous presentation.