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I don't really expect many new language features or UX improvements in LabVIEW just because they stop working on NXG. From what we know there are only a few knowledgeable people at NI who are intimately familiar with the codebase and some of its intricate details which fundamentally drive LabVIEW. There are also many customers who rely on that technology for their own business. Because of that, NI can't just throw more developers at it and change LabVIEW fundamentally unless they find a way to stay compatible or take a bold step and do breaking changes (which are inevitable in my opinion). LabVIEW will probably stay what it is today and only receive (arguably exciting) new features that NI will leverage from the NXG codebase to drive their business. Unfortunately NI hasn't explained their long-term strategy (I'll assume for now that they are still debating on it). In particular what LabVIEW/G will be in the future. Will it be community-driven? Will it be a language that anyone can use to do anything? Will it be the means to drive hardware sales for NI and partners? Will it be a separate product altogether, independent of NI hardware and technology? There are also a lot of technology-related topics they need to address. Does LabVIEW Support Unicode? - National Instruments Comparing Two VIs in LabVIEW - National Instruments (ni.com) Error 1316 While Using .NET Methods in LabVIEW - National Instruments (ni.com) Using NULL Values or Pointers in LabVIEW - National Instruments (ni.com) Not to forget UX. The list is endless and entirely different for any one of us. If and when these will be addressed is unknown. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited and enthusiastic about LabVIEW and what we can do with it. My applications are driven by technology that other programming languages simply can't compete with. Scalability is through the roof. Need to write some data to text file? Sure, no problem. Drive the next space rocket, land rover, turbine engine, etc.? Here is your VI. The clarity of code is exceptional (unless you favor spaghetti). The only problem I have with it is the fact that it is tied to a company that want's to drive hardware sales.

The first time you mentioned this I thought it was a nice gesture, now I think you are just desperate for friends...or an alcoholic. I'm down.

Which might be the main impediment to open-sourcing it. The developers working on both products are proud of their work and would be reticent to release it "as-is". They'd want to spend the time to make it presentable to people without flashlights. And NI wouldn't want to spend the money to do it. For NI to choose the open-source route, I think they'd have to consider it the easy (read "cheap") way out, and this isn't it. Did you mean quixotic? I'm not familiar with quitoxic, but it might be a jargon word. Regardless, I am familiar with the NI culture and also with toxic cultures, and NI doesn't have a toxic culture. Believe me on this. It has a good--if not great--culture, with a few aberrations here and there. Many of those aberrations have been sacked. I wouldn't describe it as quixotic, either--I think the NXG decision was reluctantly chosen after years of angst. If you would like to hear my stories about a toxic workplace culture, invite me back for a second night at the bar and I'll tell you all about it. 😮

The future is Python for many of the applications, it is easy to get in to for newcomers to programming, works great has a strong package management system and large community, and can be applied to virtually any OS you can think of, as well as it can be even used to program GPUs if you are so inclined. The huge advantage of using G and LabVIEW is that paired with NI Hardware, in the hands of someone skilled with LV you can bang out a solid prototype of a product or a Test and Measurement system so fast it will make people's heads spin. NI hardware is absolutely top notch for High End use cases or rapid prototyping, complex one offs , scientific use or complicated Test and Measurement end of line test space. However in the IoT there is strong competition for the NI SB RIO line up, for a SB RIO you will pay 1500 US. There are so may cheap programmable & capable pieces of hardware, such as Jetson Nano (ARM7+NVidia GPU for vision) or Raspberry PI (ARM7 1.4 GHz with 8GB RAM) or even Asus Tinker Board ... which will serve so many purposes and have onboard GPIO and can be purchased for 50-60 bucks ... that in that space Python paired with Linux knowledge is really making headway. And if you want to go with ZynQ from Xlinix you can get a board with FPGA ~300 Bucks, which is basically the same HW as SB RIO, all you have to do is use different software tools. If NI would consider unlocking the ability use NI FPGA with the ability to deploy to non NI Hardware ... I think this is where G absolutely would take off like wildfire and be used on millions of IoT devices everywhere in the world that are powered by and ARM7 + FPGA module... but as it stands now if you use NI FPGA you must deploy on a target you've purchased from NI. I'll really be a stickler but if we're talking about the programming language we should talk of G. LabVIEW the IDE. Never say never, I am not aware of any other graphical programming language which could be used for general purpose programing and is as complete as G. If you have come across something interesting I would like to look at it, but I feel that it would be at best an academic project, which I would not use in production code.