Leaderboard

Very interesting, please see if you can find a simplified example that can be submitted to NI. Storing a variant in a shift register is something I'm sure I've done plenty of times. Also I don't know if it makes things easier, but I've been moving away from OpenG functions for cluster manipulation, and choose to use the NI functions, and the Variant to Data trick. Attached is an example where a cluster is turned into an array of variants, manipulated, and then turned back into the cluster. Notice that the Get Type Information also returns the data name. Oh and if you update the cluster you need to set the Cluster size in the Array to Cluster to the right number of elements, the wire will be broken if it doesn't match. I made and XNode to do this but didn't want to add another unknown into debugging this. Of course if this is a bug in LabVIEW this won't, help. If this is a bug in LabVIEW, I'd bet adding an Always Copy inside the loop will probably fix it.

There are some OpenG VIs, like the Variant Configuration File IO VIs, that use the legacy form of recursion (VI Server Call By Reference to self), which is (I believe) much less efficient than using the native recursion feature introduced in LabVIEW 2009. I would recommend changing all VIs that use legacy recursion to use native recursion, provided that a performance improvement would be gained. Here's a screenshot, showing what I mean:

For me, less of my time is spent hardcore coding or engineering these days. More of my time is spent doing sales, marketing and business building activities. That's just been the trajectory of my career/business recently. So now I consume a lot more sales & marketing blogs. I have seen the same sort of dynamic at work over at www.Slashdot.org. We're all a bunch of old guys having conversations about management. Finally, it seems like everyone who used to hang out over at info-labview moved over to this website when e-mail lists became passé. Thus, LavaG didn't need to "advertise" to get new users. People just migrated over to LavaG organically because the word-on-the-street was that this is where the cool people are hanging out now. I mean...just putting on my marketing hat for a second....how exactly *are* the new kids supposed to find this site anyway?? In short: We are all getting older, our jobs are changing, and there is no organic way for this site to attract new users. I never really considered the possibility that this has anything to do with the popularity of LabVIEW generally.

NI has been stabilizing LabVIEW for many releases now, and has been mainly focused on performance and reliability. Speaking for myself, the absence of cool new language features or redefinition of the IDE and work flows are the main reasons I've been mostly inactive from LAVAG over the past few years. Once I've gone around the garden and experienced most of the things I am personally atuned to, I find it harder to keep an interest in the daily chatter that happens. I hope I'd get a renewed interest if I found a new topic that piqued my interest, but it might be wishful thinking. When on LAVAG, I kind of feel like I'm sitting in my favorite café: the discussions are background noise and I can't possibly follow them all, but they contribute to me feeling that I belong. It's comfortable. It's cozy. I like to sit next to familiar faces. If the ambiant noise is lower than before, it might simply be a realization that we've grown up as a community to the point where not everything needs to be said. Hey, LAVAG might be like an old couple that just takes comfort in the presence of the other, who knows.