Alternative to "CMP compare two VIs.vi" for FRC

[joshxdr]

Hi all, I am a mentor for a FIRST robotics team trying to set up source code control for our next season. Unfortunately the version of LabVIEW provided to FRC does not provide a license to "CMP compare two VIs.vi". This is a major problem for us, since one of our major goals for the upcoming season is to have more students become involved in software development. Using the mk-1 eyeball to check for changes seems foolhardy. I am open to any solution you guys can think of. I am willing to try developing my own substitute for this vi if someone can set me in the right direction.

[James Beleau]

With proper source control in place you should not need to compare changes from two different developers or students in your case. Mergeing changes from different developers does happen in text based languages. LabVIEW works differently. There are more files for each application. Each file, called a subvi, is similar to a function call that would be included in 1 text document in languages like C+. Typically when implementing source control for LabVIEW each file is only used by 1 developer at a time. This is a lock or check out method depending on the terminology of your source control.

SVN and the client tortuse(sp) are free.

I think Jim K. has a totorial on how to set it up even.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (joshxdr @ May 29 2009, 07:29 AM)

Hi all, I am a mentor for a FIRST robotics team trying to set up source code control for our next season. Unfortunately the version of LabVIEW provided to FRC does not provide a license to "CMP compare two VIs.vi".

I think you should lobby NI strongly to get them to add these pro features to the version of LV for FRC, including integrated source code control. If we are trying to teach the students proper software engineering then we should give them all the tools.