Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden

Who is this "0bama" guy you keep referring to?

You haven't heard of him?

Why he is the bestower of Obama money, see this link.

http://my.opera.com/BAMAToNE/blog/2009/10/12/free-obama-money-from-his-stash

Which reminds me of Benjamin Franklin who wrote;

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Quote.CC66

Ben

What are the clear differences between nerd and geek? do you mean women engineers are nerd while men engineers are geek?

...

Clear?

I believe the term geek originally (? used to ) refered to a wlidman in a circus sideshow that would bit the heads off of live chikens. Anything but appealing. But on the other hand any women whose eyes do not glaze over when the conversation gets technical is by definition "hot" so geek really can not be applied to women.

But for a man he could be one or the other or both. No, geeks are not a sub-set of nerd, since someone could be a geek with being technical.

Of course the above is subject to the typical hob-nobbing that happens here.

Ben

I would change the title of this topic to "2 executables, 2 computers, 1 call to rule them all"

... and in the network bind them.

Ben

I've got 2 computers that need to work together. The Control computer accepts user commands and displays a few indications of how the job is running. The Spec computer does the serious number crunching, and usually gets no user input at all. To keep it simple, pretend the executables are named Control.exe and Spec.exe. I would like Control.exe to start Spec.exe, but I don't know how. Once they are both running they will communicate with no problem (via reflective memory cards and optical fibers) - I've got that covered.

Right now, I've got an actual Labview VI, Spec.vi, on the Spec computer. Labview stays open on the Spec computer, and Control.exe uses VI server to open Spec.vi and run it, and that works fine. BUT - I'd rather have an executable, and not run the Labview development environment - I figure that's leaner and meaner, somehow.

One thing that occurs to me is to have a two-part Spec.exe. One very non-resource-intensive part would run all the time, and when Control.exe demands it (still using VI server?) that part would open up the main part and run that.

Better ideas welcome. I'm not very TCP-IP / .NET / etc savvy, so if you're going there, dumb it down a bit please.

VI server works with an exe so.... what is the issue?

Ben

I was pretty sure that a QSM, no matter what you did, was going to difficult to model using Meally-Moore state machines. The reason is that the Queue essentially makes it event driven, and that events break the predefined transition from one state to another. The way I look at it is with the three cases below.

1) Basic Case. Enqueue state A, state A is processed, wait for next state.

2) Compound-State case. Enqueue state A, state A is processed but at the end of the state it enqueues state B. State B is processed, wait for next state.

3) Interrupted Compound-State Case. Enqueue state A, state A is processed but before the state finishes state C is enqueued, at the end of the state A it enqueues state B. State C finishes. State B finishes. Wait for next state.

Essentially that could go on forever with events queued up, so that nothing processes sequentially like a SM needs to be modeled, and every thing is at the mercy of the queue. I would say to enforce the flow of the program if you need to model it.

If a Sequence is running only allow states to be queued up to a secondary queue (or more). That makes it so that sequences must finish before moving on to other operations, thus the wait state must be preformed before operating on another sequence. I think that makes modeling much easier. Drawback is that new events have no priority and you have to wait for sequences to finish before responding.

Event based modeling is difficult, and always makes me do star-type diagrams.

Good point! many of my GUI's apps are of that form with a single event state taht transitions to a state then return to the event state.

The following ideas are based on the QSMs that I have seen...

I thought about this modeling Q and what I suggested earlier to draw-up the stacks that are queued up as individual diagrams. If you complete this work for your app I suspect you will find the the states that are called in more than one of these diagrams (example File Open, just guessing) could be turned into a sub-VI that could be used before exiting the state that calls them .... with the intent to eliminat that state from the stack that is queued up. If this process is repeated for all of teh "shared" states, and extended for the one-off states, a QSM can be converted to a normal state diagram.

But the above is just a thought exercise and I am not telling yo to rewrite your code just so you can model it. But if you do the re-write in your head or on paper, you may be able to draw up the moel after all using "macro states".

But then again if the QSM is pushing at both the front and the back of teh queue... I don't think the above will work.

Ben

... just ask Nikola Tesla

And now that you brought up Tesla...

Monday I was delivering an upgraded app that had to using a resolver to monitor to rotaion of a shaft. The customer (being young) never learned about resolvers and mentioned "I'd don't know how they work, there just seems to be a bunch of wire in there." If Tesla was not the person that invented resolvers, he would have loved the idea.

Ben

Not to discredit her (or anyone elses work) but that's like saying without men there would never have been light bulbs. Implying of course that Thomas Edison is the only person who could have created the light bulb. Given enough time I would like to believe that a women would have invented the light bulb, and possibly a man to come up with the idea of a compiler...of course without men I guess the human race would die off and no one would have invented the light bulb.

Yes but...

would it have happened by now? Who can tell.

If we look at the state of physics prior to Einstien the general thought was "Well we know everything now so what's next?" Einstien had the same set of facts in front of him but it was him that had the idea and shared it with us. For my part I'll attribute the light bulb going on

in her head as the reason we have compilers now.

Ben

A few years ago this was circulating around:

http://www.innergeek.us/geek-test.html

I scored embarrasingly high on it, much to the amusement of my fellow geeky cow-orkers. So far only my uber-geeky godson has beat my score and that's because he know all the gaming stuff that I don't.

Back then you got 10 extra points just for being female. I haven't looked over the latest version to see if that's still true.

If that is the same one from a couple of years ago...

I scored as an extereme geek but Jim Kring reported being a Geek God.

Ben

I'm not sure where you got your sources for this information but I'll believe it.

Grace Hopper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper

was the one who came up with the idea of a compiler that would translate human readable code to machine language. She invented COBOL. Prior to her idea it was one's and zeros.

Ben

The bump of this thread has me thinking...

Yes a good week and today I complete my first year as a Granfather, the Steeler won the 6th Super Bowl, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, I got promoted to Senior Architect, and I sat for the CLA-recert and submitted a LVOOP design. I was nervous about it at the time but quoting someone wise;

It is better to have tried and failed than to have never have tried at all.

So it has been a GREAT year for me.

Ben

RE: the differnce between the two versions...

THe guy I quoted earlier is on one of those positions people dream of when is comes to software positions. I can't think of a more lofty postition than he has. When he looked at my designs and commente "a little Mealy a little ...." it did not matter for him. Before I heard him say that, I din't know there was a difference so I just did what came naturally to heel with whatever it is called.

RE: the current state Q

If you look at how the new SM toolkit works, it appears to be a fancy interface that lets you configure nested case structures. Everytime it's loop iterates it evaluates all of the conditons gurads etc. to decide what state it is supposed to be in. I don't use that tool since it prevents me from stay in a state to keep up with queues but rather I have to poll the queue, but I digress.

Ben

Women do not belong in Computer Science.

.....

JUST KIDDING, DONT KILL ME!!!!!

I understand you are just kidding but think about what computers would be like without women...

we would still be prgramming in 1's and 0's and we would all be able to to binary math in our heads to calculate the magnitude of the next jump and choose an operation that has a parameter with enough bits to make the jump...

Ben

Wow! Finally something interesting to read in the alfa thread!

Does the concept of having a "soul" fit into this philosophy somewhere? I'm trying to get at what you think "happens" to us after God takes back the life he lent us.

Good Q that I can not do justice too but I reply.

One of the profits (was it the "dry bones" stort?) siad that God can raise up children from rocks or something similar to that. So provided God cares to "remember"* us, he can "restore" us from backup any time* he wants.

Jesus said something that I don't fully foolw but it is my best hint when he is reported to have said "We will be come one with him as his is one withthe father" (still from memory so check for yourself, DOn't trust ME!)...

So guessing now!

So I imagine that those that are worth remebering will become part of God and those that aren't will simply be forgotten.

But I have no special insight into this topic and can onyl share my thoughts in the hopes that your replies will help me shape my relationship with "The Supreme Wire-Worker".

Please speak your mind, I learn from others.

Ben

* "remember" and"time"

Words that imply time before/after get weird when talking about God becuase I don't feel that he is limited by time like we are. Since it is his creation he can run forward and backwwards as meets his desires. Sometimes I wonder if he is single-stepping the whole world over and over again but probing differnt people durring each pass.

This is potentially interesting.

I don't think that geeks are limited to driving away just girls but all non-geeks.

[set boasting mode = true]

My wife...

Was called Bit-brain as an undergrad ...

Got an A in Fortran and Cobol...

Her role model was Rear-Admiral Grace Hopper ...

Earner her masters in IS at 23 ...

Can normalize a data base while standing up ...

wears a tee-shirt that reads

"GEEKS are HOT"

[set bosting mode = false]

So I don't think it is limited to only women.

I think it could be attributed to language though. THink of it. You have a choice of sitting with people that speak your language and another group that does not. Unless they are willing to teach you the other language, you may find it boring listiening to the forign tongue. Dilbert makes a living of of "dork-speak" jokes.

Ben

I was thinking about time and space: ...

My question: Who setup the clock for our life?

So one of my mind blowing experiences in school was when learning about space and time and how the speed of light can be thought of as a conversion factor to convert time to space. This idea combined with one of the early phrases in Genesis where at first this was only a void and then (paraphrasing) "God said, let there be light." made me think that with that thought by God, both time and space were created. It gives me the willies verytime I think about it.

So who set up the clock of our lives?

I believe the life we are lent belongs to God and we are only caretakers of what was is and always be his ("his" generic). So when it came and when it returns is completely his perogative.

Just my 2 cents,

Ben

According to LV8.6 Help:

I figured that if the front panel indicators are not updated and the indicator is not connected to a terminal, there's no need to allocate memory for that indicator. I guess that's not the case, because a disable structure around the indicators did speed up my process considerably.

Also, welcome to LAVA.

Gary

Another way to twist it so it make smore sense.

Controls and indicators not on the icon connector can still be used, although I have not seen it much or often. If I wanted to icould write a value to an indicator (not on the connecto pane) in one call of a sub-VI and use a local to read that value on the next call. I have seen it used like Sr are used in an Action Engine (AE). I think I have even seen controls not on the icon connector used to localize VI for diferent langauges by using Invoke node set control method and savign the VI.

No the GUI does not need to update but that data has to be there for it to read on another call.

Ben

I've been working on developing a state diagram to document what our application has morphed into.* ...

*Yes, I know the diagram is supposed to come before the code. Managing this headless chicken of a project was out of my hands. Best I can do at this point is try to contain the blood.

This question illustrates why I don't use a QSM. All but the simplest can become impossible to diagram.

But to help you...

I'd start but putting names on the pseudo-sequences that are possible. By pseudo-seq, I am thinking about the string of state that get queued up. Draw them up as flow diagrams ("a little Mealey a little Moore" Head of software Engineering at a lage company). To help flesh what I am trying to get at... In some ways a QSM almost reads like text language, where the developers code up states that are called like sub-routines and the order is as queued with parameter passing being implied through the common SRs'.

Done thinking, I hope that gives you some ideas.

Ben

PS Just noticed the sub-heading and No, i am not a SD expert. I have just been using them for 30 years and I feel very comfortabel with them.

OK, I'm intrigued. What data does each of these methods need to operate? If there is no special data needed or if it comes from the caller (which is very likely the case), then you can just write three methods (e.g., start, logIfError, stop) for a single class (e.g., EventLogger). (Note that the class input terminal does not have to be required!)

I'm guessing the start and stop methods need to know a logFilename and a queueName, and the logIfError method additionally has an error input.

Paul

Start - Starts a logger running in the background. Create a queue and shove it an AE.

LogIf - checks error cluster if set use the AE to queue up the error cluster. Meanwhile background process find error in queue and logs it to file.

Stop - Submit a queue message with the word Exit in the source field of the error cluster.

So the AE (once initialized) is only used to hold the queue ref used by the background logger and to do the enqueue.

I suspose a named queue could be used and use that name in the LVOOP and let LV do the lookup of the queue ref instead of caching the ref in the AE, I I guess your wireless class could do it.

Ben

Sorry - I didn't mean to make that look like I was belittling anyone there. I know that there are plenty of damn good LV developers that design architectures out there that don't have OO experience.

No problem Chris!

I'm a little uncomforatble with the title " Senior Architect". All I ever wanted to be was an engineer. Since I came up thru the world of computers starting with a print set and an o'scope, I never recieved any formal software training and picked-up what I know by talking to people and reading the forums. I'm not really sure what makes an Architect an architect. This reminds me of of my wifes grandfather and his books. He was an engieer and I got his books when he passed. They are a real gem for me since he studied engineering via mail-order. There were adds in the book to "make $10 a week!", but I digress. The highest level of math that he had to master was trigonometry. So this highlighted how far engineering has come in his life time but it illustrates one of my beliefs. Just because the schools started teaching calc, it did not invalidate him being an engineer.

So why would being an Architect be something that can slip away when new whistles and bells get released?

Done thinking out loud.

Ben

Still willing to play along...

I have some re-use code that I have been re-using since LV 6 that provides Event logging services that can used to track system start-up shut-down and any errors that may have happened. It is based on an AE. All my developers have to do is drop this widget in their error chains and they always have a way to track back an error. It is so simple it isn't worth showing.

It has three actions

Start (Open log file write start-up time and create queue for new messages)

Log if error (post to queue if an error)

Stop (close log and kill queue)

So with three wrapper (one for each) that gives us three VI's the developer has to use.

So how would I write a LVOOP replacement that would actually be a one-to-one replacement?

From what I understand of LVOOP, I'm either going to hide an AE in a LVOOP method, or my developers are going to start running more wires to use the LVOOP version.

Take care,

Ben

[set groan alert = True]

One of my wifes war stories.

IN th days of DOS...

There was a command that created a folder and then set the defaul to same. There was also an option that could be set in the boot file to show the default as part of teh prompt. Customer wanted create a floder for teh Public Utilit Comision PUC. He tried and did not see teh prompt change. treied again an no change. Call in my wife. she found the default was not set in the boot file so he he had a path of C:/PUC/PUC/PUC/PUC...

Her bnoss asked what the problem was. She said "oh he had the directory structure all PUC-ed up."

Ben

No. But our federal government, in it's current condition will most certainly make things worse. As much as I believe in states rights I don't even think the states can reform much of anything anymore. The federal government simply has way too much authority and control over too many areas of our lives.

I recently heard Judge Napolitano (sp?) spek to this point and we still have some options.

1) There is an option for states to refuse to enforce fed laws. I believe the Whiskey Rebellion was an example of this as well as what California is doing with marijuana laws. Under normal cicumstances the fed leans on the sate thru funding to force tehm to comply.

2) I believe a majority of states can call for a constutional congress.

3) Supreme court case to challenge the previous finind of teh court that found that the "commerce" clause of the consitution gave congress the regulate everything that COULD cross state lines. This is being tested in Texas (thanks for Ron Paul by the way!) re"Guns manufactured and used only in the state are not regulated by teh fed as well as some other states.

If they did call for a consttuional congress some of things that I think could help

1) repeal the 17th (?) which made snators elected rather than appointed.

2) Term limit.

3) Abolish seriority rules that prevent a real "Mr Smith goes to Washington"

Ben

...

I haven't done the math, but I think I've gotten more up-clicks on this post than I have on all my other previous posts combined. Someone(s) here likes what I'm saying and what we are talking about.

...

Mega-Kudos to you Paul for keeping the thread updated. I do not have the time to do the research and your posts are very helpful. I also feel you are performing a public service by keeping this thread alive.

Speaking for myself, I wish I could say more or express my thought better. I see the myth ( I though long and hard about that word and until the numbers are published, or other knowlege surfaces, I have a hard time accepting it as a fact) of GW/CC as a threat to mankind (as stated in the waring linked above) and therefore am obligated to do what I can to raise the alarm.

Whenever the emporer king parades around naked someone has to have the intestinal fortitude to say he "has no clothes".

Ben

Edit!

Another quote by Thomas Jefferson

"

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

"

see here

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff136431.html

A petition signed by over 30,000 American scientists.

I heard a report on the radio yesterday that the American Physics Society sent a letter regarding legislation regarding global warming. And I thought I would never have a good reason for writing them a check every year.

Ben

PS LAVA just needs 32 more posts to exceed a U16 to represent the total # of posts!

Ben: In my very long post I mentioned that AEs transmitt data wireless...

Felix

Right you are! Now I understand what that means.

Ben