Can LabVIEW without "event driven progamming" still be LabVIEW

[Antoine Chalons]

Do you remember back in the days (up to LabVIEW 6i) what we had to code before we had the event structure?

Surely anyone would be annoyed to have to code with LabVIEW Base since there is no "event driven programming".. wel in fact that not totally true, because if you download LabVIEW evaluation version, it includes the event driven programming and the code generated can be opened and run with LabVIEW Base, you just can't edit or add anything related to events but well a second computer is cheaper than the cost difference between LabvIEW Base and Full.

So what's the point in falsely removing the event driven programming from LabVIEW Base?

I think this is an extremely bad move form NI.

Plus, let's say some potential custom gets the evaluation version, likes it, get a Base license, figures out he's been screwed and now has to buy LabVIEW full to use event driven programming because his evaluation period is over... isn't it lying to customers?

[Yair]

I wouldn't call it lying to the customers, but I would agree that I consider the event structure to be a pretty basic tool, and the lack of edit support for it makes the base version crippled.

However, it's quite possible that NI targets the base version at users which it expects would not need to have an event structure (e.g. because they only write simple VIs which are run once by pressing the run button and have no "need" for handling UI input). Eventually, if the base version exists, you have to take some stuff out of it to make the full version worth while and it's a legitimate business practice. Ultimately, the list of differences between the base and full version isn't very long and if you don't check what those differences are before you buy, that's your problem.

Which isn't to say this isn't annoying. I have a cheap and simple phone and I'm always annoyed that its search feature can only match the beginning of a string (for instance, if I had you in my phone book, typing "ch" would not find your name. I would have to type "an" to get it). This feature is not missing because the makers of the phone didn't think of it or because the code for it is complicated. It's missing because they decided that only the more expensive models would have it so that you have a reason to buy them.

[Aristos Queue]

We have a sizable number of customers for whom the Event Structure is a non-entity. If your primary use of LabVIEW is a single For Loop with a set of nodes to continuously pull data from some hardware source and then display that data on a Graph or Chart, you just don't need the full force of a programming language. That's a pretty common LV user, and Base is for them.

[jgcode]

Do you remember back in the days (up to LabVIEW 6i) what we had to code before we had the event structure?

You have to go old school using LabVIEW Real Time as well e.g. for a Remote Panel interface.