jzoller

Based on the title, is this meant to be MarkDown compatible? That would be very nice!

Ton

I think it could be (and I would like it to be!), but there are some fundamental differences in how they work. For instance, Markdown doesn't support underlining, and focuses pretty heavily on linking.

I would like to end up closer to the Markdown spec than it is now, but there's a good bit of work yet to go.

Joe Z.

Inspired by this idea, these are just a few, one-day-of-coding functions that implement a simple, regex based markup for string controls.

For those not familiar with it, markup allows inline text to modify the displayed properties of the text. For instance, **bold** becomes bold, _italics_ becomes italics, etc.

The code currently supports:

• Bold
• Italic
• Underline
• Colors (in #XXXXXX format)
• Text sizes (verysmall, small, large, verylarge)
• Strikethrough
• Some font setting

Of course, it's still limited by the string control capabilities (no hyperlinks, no superscripts, no embedded lists).

If people think it's worthwhile, I'll develop it into a somewhat more complete solution (or, of course, they can!). An X-control that supports it seems like an obvious extension, but I'm open to ideas.

Note: this was developed in LV2011, and back-ported to LV2009. If you spot a problem with it, please notify me.

Use: open and run LVMark_TestString.vi for a demonstration.

Thanks,

Joe Z.

LVMark2009.zip

For those who don't know them, the NI Field Architects are a small and elite group of LabVIEW awesomeness (some might call them oracles), with a *lot* of experience (ie: they're old ) - check out their new blog here: http://labviewjournal.com/

I'll be expecting more incense and mysticism from Nancy at the next user's group meeting

JZ

AQ's answer covers very well what I would consider to be the philosophy of computer science. Without an understanding of this philosophy, you will spend a LOT of time rediscovering things that are already known.

However, there are other types of books. Some of these can be more important from a strictly practical standpoint. Even if you don't read the actual book, you should have an understanding (and experience with) the material.

(Note: many of these are covered in typical computer science and electrical engineering courses, as well. You may just look up the course syllabi at your local/prestigious university.)

Fundamentals of computer science:

• A data structures book (I like this one, but it's because Michael Main was an amazing teacher)
• A programming languages fundamentals book that gives at least a high level understanding of compilers. I'd recommend one, but I've not yet found a great one.
• An introductory algorithms book, like... Introduction to Algorithms. No O(x^n) code! And if you don't understand that, it's why you need the book

Fundamentals of electrical engineering & construction: At this point, I admit that I'm a comp sci kinda guy, so I'm shallow here, but...

• A book about the fundamentals of computer hardware. Code by Charles Petzold seems to fill the gap pretty painlessly... not necessarily rigorously, but painlessly.
• The electrical engineers I work with swear that Practical Electronics for Inventors is absolute gold. It does things "the right way, finally!".
• Unlike traditional programmers, we often need to actually make non-product level stuff in the physical world. I always recommend Building Scientific Apparatus, and a mentor to help out through the rough spots.
• ni.com is no slouch in this department... their white papers are occasionally (obviously, irritatingly) marketing tracts, but more often contain a lot of good, fundamental measurement information.

Software construction:

• stackoverflow.com has pretty exhaustive lists of this type of book, but there are a couple of standouts.
• Code Complete by Steve McConnell. Yes, you should read this. Once a year.
• The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas. Not my favorite writing style, but, when you start putting it into practice, you realize how useful it really is.

Business of software: There's been a lot of software navel-gazing over the years. That said, a lot of it is just useful navel-gazing. And all of us do work in software, or want to... right?

• Joel on Software. Joel can be irritatingly smug, on occasion. That said, his writings have an amazing amount of insight into how the software world should be, and sometimes isn't. And hey, he has a book list, too. That looks familiar...
• Peopleware. Once a year. Twice if you're a manager. Not kidding.
• I really like randsinrepose.com. I suspect it's just a personal taste, but there it is.

Probably the most important thing is... READ! Something, anything! Most programmers (and test engineers) don't. And it gives you a huge advantage when you do.

Joe Z.

So, I'm on round two of back surgery recovery, which leaves me a lot of time to think beyond what meeting is coming up next...

I'd like to be a better LabVIEW programmer (yes, even after 10 years!). One of the things that, I believe, makes for a better programmer is working with those who are better than you. Honestly, most of the people I've worked with really, ah, don't care that much... or, often, there isn't even another LabVIEW programmer for me to work with. In my experience, this is the rule for almost everyone.

Over the years, this situation has left me doing a lot of research and testing, but without feedback, I often end up with the feeling of just "making things up". And so, when I run across a job listing like this totally awesome gem, I'm left wondering... am I even remotely qualified for that?

I'm curious... what have other people done to become better top-end LV programmers, and to work with the best in the industry? Joined one of the top consulting firms? Joined NI? Started their own business? Anything else?

Thanks,

Joe Z.

Other than a few disappointing attempts at OOP, I've so far managed to avoid that paradigm altogether (sometimes it is true that you can't teach an old cat new tricks).

Imagine my surprise when I was asked to work on a new project that's going to be written in C#. Can't get much OOP-ier than that. Guess I better dust off my copy of The Object-Oriented Thought Process.

For the mechanics of C#, I really liked Andrew Troelsen's Pro C# and the .NET Platform (although I have an earlier version). It's a fun language, and Visual Studio is really very nice to work with.

Have fun,

Joe Z.

Hi Ryan,

I like snippets. I've played around with them (IE only in my tests, and you may need to turn off Protected Mode and restart IE) a fair bit, and they ARE fun. But they seem... underdeveloped.

For my use cases, they just need things that don't (and maybe can't) exist:

• Cross browser support
• Bundling the hierarchy into the image, rather than just the top level code
• Keeping context linking (say, to property nodes)
• Integrated thumbnailing would be awesome
• A better way to match abstract images to larger code (like VI icons do)... okay, I can build this myself, but I'd take it if it showed up
• Using the menu (rather than a right click) for creating snippets is slow

The thing that really killed my little palette experiment there, though, was a lack of browser integration into the LV IDE. Swapping out to drag something out of a browser window is just a pain, especially on a single screen. I'm not suggesting this is a great LV feature overall, but it definitely makes snippets hard to use.

I did use snippets at work to build a little library of templates to host on the central SharePoint (Not my choice of web servers...): the new users really liked being able to visually browse what was available. But, since it requires some libraries to already be in place on their computer, it really doesn't work as a package management system.

Joe Z.

You could also go totally out of the LV band and perform a differential upload of your results files to FTP or SFTP every so often. This keeps you from having to refactor your code, and may be a little more friendly to security.

Excellent! Do they perform Masochism Tango as well?

Sorry, you need XControls for that

What do you mean by losing control?

...

Tim

I thought this:

http://screencast.com/t/Th1N0wVFm0G

... I need less caffeine, I think.

Joe Z.

...

Has anyone actually measured the cost of wrapping everything in error cases?

Good luck Cat!

I had my hemilaminectomy/microdiscectomy a year ago (and I no longer shovel snow...). It took about two weeks to get back to work (I wrote GenINI while I was down), but about six months to really feel right again. And yep, numbness and tingling that comes and goes to this day.

Don't be afraid to ask for an anti-inflammatory if you need it... it helped me a bunch (though I was monumentally grumpy for a week from the methyl prednisone). Also, definitely look into physical therapy, and actually do the exercises and stretches!

Take care,

Joe Z.

...

What am I doing wrong here...??

I haven't had time to really look into this, but here are some ideas.

Static methods are not accessed via constructor, but by selecting the method in a stand alone .NET invoke node. See the old-but-probably-still-valid http://forums.ni.com...View/m-p/631352.

There's no generics support in LV, so methods returning a List<> might not show up in the available invoke list. I'm not certain if this would affect the class itself.

I'm not sure on the internal class visibility... can you actually make a constructor node for it in LV?

Joe Z.

Just curious... are you using the separate compiled code option? (VI Properties->General checkbox)

Social-media-VIEW: crowdsource your measurements!

I have just read the terms of use of NI.com (it's locate behind the legal section on the bottom of the ni.com homepage) and there is a section that NI gives the user the right to post a link to ni.com, unless the website disparages NI or any of it's products. (I had to look up disparage on google translate).

So what is the legal background of such a claim in the international realm that is called internet? (note that the url of the terms of use implicatly mentions that it's US only).

So any webpage that mocks LabVIEW or where a user mentions a bug inside LabVIEW is not allowed to link to ni.com.

Strange.

Ton

As always, Wikipedia has some good info, and starting points for other reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#Legal_issues

JZ

If you like listening to classical music while coding and/or like Lost (The TV Show) check out Chris Ryan's music on YouTube.

He's got a great arrangement of Lost music and also does his own compositions.

The

is split into two parts, but he provides a link to the entire piece in one MP3 file.

http://www.youtube.c...ser/KLGAviation

Really wonderful, thanks for the links!

In return, Metafilter had a link to the classical quartet music from Arcanum (which I'll hopefully be able to find time to play from gog.com soon...)

JZ

( I should note, the author has released these recordings for free download... http://www.benhouge.com/audio.html)

decisions decisions...

I bet you can't select to use either one (I noticed the "Use Selected Item" button was greyed out).

Yep, the problem went away when I quit LV...

Let the force guide you my son.

If I get lightning, I'm going dark side. Sorry.

Well you are waiting...on an error...hmmm how Common is that????

Someday, Wait (ms) may have error terminals.

<sigh>... I wonder which path to choose?

I usually just browse through http://www.ni.com/solutions/ when I need an example.

Edit: Oh, and of course, Mythbusters

...

Note: In the UML tool we use (Enterprise Architect), we can check in a package at any level. We can retrieve any checked-in (controlled) package, and this means we include the controlled package and its subpackages—but not its superpackages—in the new project. This allows us to reuse subpackages in various projects. I wish LabVIEW project libraries worked the same way. Is there some good reason they don’t or can’t? Is there another good way to accomplish the same goal?

AQ's reply in another thread probably explains why subprojects can't be separated.

I think the difficulty is that lvlibs look like a package management system. In reality, lvlibs really aren't very well suited to that function.

JZ

Congratulations! And happy holidays!

The support.

Thanks NI!

The marketing.

It's tiring having to continually defend LV (and therefore my budgets) as a "real" language.

Something to note...

Using a home install of a company license may end up gifting your personal work to that company.

If you wish to keep/open source/license/sell your work independently, make sure you know your employer's policies, your employment contract and local laws.