CLA-R: advice?

[ShaunR]

10 hours ago, Daklu said:

I am under the impression XControls have more or less been relegated to the rusty nails bin. I know I've seen NI employees recommend against using them in presentations. 

That's unfortunate as I've just released one xControl and am about to release another

[Aristos Queue]

The rusty nails are never-released features that aren't supported. XControls very much are supported and are useful, just not as useful as we all wish they were. Big difference. 

[Aristos Queue]

PS: ShaunR's new XControl is pretty nifty.

[Darren]

On 5/29/2019 at 10:55 PM, Daklu said:

I am under the impression XControls have more or less been relegated to the rusty nails bin. I know I've seen NI employees recommend against using them in presentations. 

One of those employees is me, but I am always clear when I discuss this topic that my recommendation against XControls is my personal opinion and is not an official NI position.

[Daklu]

On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 9:12 AM, Darren said:

One of those employees is me, but I am always clear when I discuss this topic that my recommendation against XControls is my personal opinion and is not an official NI position.

My apologies if I misrepresented what you said.  Can you elaborate on why you recommend against using XControls?

[Darren]

Just now, Daklu said:

My apologies if I misrepresented what you said.  Can you elaborate on why you recommend against using XControls?

No problem, I just want to make sure people know the difference between "Darren the G programmer says _____" and "Darren the NI employee says _____".

In my "Don't Wait for LabVIEW R&D... Implement Your Own LabVIEW Features!" presentation, after I clarify that I'm presenting my personal opinion and not an official NI position, I contraindicate XControls because of numerous stability issues I've seen with them in large applications over the years. You can see my slides and watch a recording of the presentation here: http://bit.ly/dnattlvhooks 

[Daklu]

9 minutes ago, Darren said:

...I contraindicate XControls because of numerous stability issues I've seen with them in large applications over the years.

That's in line with what I remembered, but I didn't want to spread misinformation.    (Age plays havoc on my memory.)

[ShaunR]

37 minutes ago, Darren said:

No problem, I just want to make sure people know the difference between "Darren the G programmer says _____" and "Darren the NI employee says _____".

In my "Don't Wait for LabVIEW R&D... Implement Your Own LabVIEW Features!" presentation, after I clarify that I'm presenting my personal opinion and not an official NI position, I contraindicate XControls because of numerous stability issues I've seen with them in large applications over the years. You can see my slides and watch a recording of the presentation here: http://bit.ly/dnattlvhooks 

xControls are at timestamp 1:01:51

[Aristos Queue]

I pro-indicate them (opposite of contraindicate?) because despite some issues over the years, they have some abilities that nothing else in LV replicates, and I've learned where the rough edges are. There are some really sophisticated tools that can be built from these controls (even the Q Controls can't help out while editing). I've built multiple XControls that work just fine in built apps and large projects. YMMV.

[desidude]

I started using LabVIEW on a Mac SE in 1988 while in college and I have regularly used it ever since. I have also developed a couple of unique technologies for LabVIEW platform that use LVOOP, Xcontrols, and VI scripting, among other techs which aren't normally used by most LabVIEW users (my inventions were the reason why my company was a part of the elite LabVIEW roadmap group.) I was once a CLD, and then a CLA, and now since I failed CLA-R I'd have to start from scratch again - all because I got tricked by twisted questions. It is irrelevant that I can easily answer straight-forward questions relevant to LabVIEW Architect skills. This is why many are finding the regular 4-hours CLA exam more relevant than this CLA-R brouhaha.

It's really a crap-shoot, I had read this thread earlier so I was preparing for almost 3 days nonstop, specifically going over the Advanced Architecture online training and software engineering manual/etc.  Yet the way they worded most questions in actual exam is what caused almost all of my failed answers, not a lack of knowledge (I was allowed 15 mins of review after the test.) It didn't help that I was sitting in a closed small room right next to a woman who had overloaded herself with perfume, oh the headache!

Hints for others:

1) Notice excessive usage of "NOT" in so many sample exam questions, its simply to throw you off, absolutely no other reason and nothing to do with your LabVIEW Architect knowledge. Actual exam is no different, this is where most are getting thrown off. Furthermore, I failed EVERY question on API, know why? Because of subtle twists they threw into the questions which I didn't catch while quickly going through them in a limited time, not because I can't develop well structured LabVIEW APIs (which I have successfully done for several decades!)

2) Pray to your gods for luck; your knowledge is irrelevant if you do not understand the questions correctly in the short amount of available time. You may know the material but read questions multiple times and FAST while paying attention to my hint#1 above, otherwise you're guaranteed to fail. (See what I mean by nothing to do with your LabVIEW Architect skills?)

3) Try not to flag too many questions for a later review because you'll waste precious time re-reading them again later and not able to finish. Only flag questions for a later review where you are over 90% confused. 🙂 Otherwise pick your best answer quickly and move forward. (Out of 12 questions I had flagged for a later review, I only failed 2 despite not able to finish review of over 7 of them due to time.)

4) Recertification by points:  This is a no-brainer with a catch. I used to be involved in the community but I realized too late that for certify-by-points you also have to send emails to certification at ni dot com so that they record every event (quite ridiculous, because all events were at NI locations and sponsored by NI, including user-group meetings where they make you put your name and sign.) I had done LabVIEW presentations at local user-groups to advanced as well as new-to-labview groups,  NIweek, and local colleges/universities as a part of industry involvement in their curriculum. I realized too late that ALL of this was essentially wasted because even though I certainly had more participation points than needed, I just didn't keep a track of them and sent to NI to record!  *Poof* its all gone.

If being CLA is important to you, good luck with recertification. For me, its not worth another days of efforts (I have actual work to do) because in the past 10 years no one in my company or our clients have asked me if I were LabVIEW certified, let alone if I were a CLA. In fact it is doubtful if any of them know what CLA is or care. Only NI system integrators seem to care about CLA due to marketing.

Edited July 24, 2019 by desidude
corrected sentence

[desidude]

On 5/31/2019 at 9:12 AM, Darren said:

One of those employees is me, but I am always clear when I discuss this topic that my recommendation against XControls is my personal opinion and is not an official NI position.

Unfortunately many of us (with no relation to NI) take opinion of NI employees (especially those related to R&D) seriously, to me there is no difference between your unofficial or your official NI position,  the assumption is that your personal opinion is based on your vast experience in actually dealing with these technical designs and issues, where as the official NI position on the same issue is whatever best suits NI business. Hence I (and I'm sure most others) rather take your personal opinion seriously even if it doesn't match the official NI position.

Having said that, five years ago or so a bunch of NI R&D engineers came to our booth at NIweek and adamantly/forcefully convinced us that Xcontrols were going away because they won't be in NXG. And since regular LabVIEW was going to get phased out, we better not use them in our design! Using Xcontrols was the core requirement of our toolkit, so my company decided to not waste more time in finishing or launching our toolkit. Now, five years later, I don't know how many even bother using NXG, but Xcontrols are definitely still being used and still "officially" supported by NI for the foreseeable future.  Essentially despite creating a technology, we lost opportunity because we valued personal opinion/position of NI R&D engineers back then, so we lose if we value personal opinions of NI employees (if it doesn't match official NI position), we lose even if we don't value them (for example, due to inferior design)!

Edited July 24, 2019 by desidude

[hooovahh]

18 hours ago, desidude said:

4) Recertification by points:  This is a no-brainer with a catch. I used to be involved in the community but I realized too late that for certify-by-points you also have to send emails to certification at ni dot com so that they record every event (quite ridiculous, because all events were at NI locations and sponsored by NI, including user-group meetings where they make you put your name and sign.) I had done LabVIEW presentations at local user-groups to advanced as well as new-to-labview groups,  NIweek, and local colleges/universities as a part of industry involvement in their curriculum. I realized too late that ALL of this was essentially wasted because even though I certainly had more participation points than needed, I just didn't keep a track of them and sent to NI to record!  *Poof* its all gone.

So most of my interactions with NI in that capacity are documented somewhere.  If I presented at NI Week, it is available online.  If I attended NI Week then I have expense reports on it (and I know I attended), if I present at a user group I post my slides after the presentation, if I participate in a beta I'll remember, or even have the beta VM still on my computer.  So what I did was when my certification was about a year from expiring I just started adding up all the events and presentations I did.  Once I reached 50 points I sent an email to NI saying what I did and when and how I was up to 50.  They emailed back within a couple days saying I was then certified for another 4 years.  The one thing you might have a hard time with is remembering what user groups you attended if you aren't always a regular.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

While it’s understandable that you feel frustrated about the failure, part of multiple choice tests is to play with the wording to test if people actually read the question or just might remember answers from similar worded questions from other tests. This is fairly common among every single multiple choice test I have done so far!

Is it tricky? Yes definitely! Unfair? Not really. My failures were in XControls and in the Architect terminologies, since I never did a single XControl and despite reading the Advanced Course Manual about XControl development once, just didn’t remember all the different ability methods and their catches in what order they are fired, and the Architect terminologies is basically taken from some book that used a specific number of words that might or might not be the holy grail of software development. 

I could most likely have certified by points if I had kept a record of the events I attended and the occasional presentation. But alas I didn’t. Is it to much asked to ask for those points yourself compared to expecting NI to hire a staff of a several secretaries who painstakingly go through every attendance list and try to match those entries to active members of the CLD, CLA and other certification lists? I don’t think so!

[pawhan11]

For me it was easier to pass full exam one more time. It is very hard to prepare for multiple choice questions, they ask about xcontrols that I never use and some details about polymorphic vis that noone needs. For full exam You can prepare at home, 60% of the framework that must be preapred is always the same.

[Deep_Blue]

My plans to get the recertification by points were thwarted mostly by covid, so after my certification was suspended in March this year, I was left with the decision to take either the CLA-R or the CLA, in a PSI exam center. Luckily I did not read this thread and was fully expecting to nail it due to my 20+ years of actively participating in numerous diverse projects in different companies in different industries.

My preparations were IMHO quite okay, took the example exam and a little surprisingly got only 20/30 answers right so would have narrowly failed. 70% means you got to get 21 of them right. Next, I did some very specific reading of the failed topics and designed my first ever XControl as this was gray area for me. Very soon after this, I took my first real test and promptly failed it with the same score of 20/30.

More reading and researching, two weeks grace period, and today I passed my CLA-R with 22/30 correct answers ✨.

I have to say, most of the comments on this thread about the CLA-R scope are still 100% valid.

This test is funny. After finishing answering the questions, I had plenty of time and was able to go through all of the questions the second time. Up until the point I got the results I was confident that I would get a decent score as every question seemed pretty clear. And only 73%, go figure! Safe to say, I'll put more effort on recertification by points after this experience.

There's one other thing I'd like to comment, on as it relates to asking outdated questions. The "Merge errors.vi" that was presented in one of the questions has been deprecated in LabVIEW 2010. You shouldn't have to memorize the exact functionality, and it shouldn't appear in the list of questions anymore. I know the functions that have got upgrades, as the earliest LabVIEW version I have been exposed to was 5.1 but that will not be true for everyone taking this test.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Deep_Blue

[hooovahh]

2 hours ago, Deep_Blue said:

My plans to get the recertification by points were thwarted mostly by covid,

Yeah I'm concerned about this too.  I have about a year and a half so I'm not screwed yet, but I'm going to have to focus to make sure I get there.  I plan on going to NI Week/Connect next year, and doing the beta this year.  This on top of attending and presenting at user groups should be enough.  Previous years I renewed by points without even trying.

[crossrulz]

I actually found COVID helped me renew since so many user groups went virtual.  I was attending user group meetings from Europe, Texas, Michigan, etc.  Those points added up really quickly.

[ASTDan]

I think the re-certification by points needs to be revised.  What about writing articles, making technical videos, attending virtual events, teaching classes, reading books, and many more.

NI Connect didn't have opportunities for people outside of NI to present this year.  How will that be handled?

COVID disrupted a lot of community events.  I know NI is giving credit for attending virtual events, but will they continue that in the future?  What community events will NI support if any?

Speaking for myself NI connect without community presentations isn't that interesting.   The presentations at G Dev Con looks more interesting to me moving forward.  Will NI give recertification credits for attending these independent events?  Do you need to attend in person or virtual?  What events count and what events don't?

[Jordan Kuehn]

21 hours ago, ASTDan said:

Speaking for myself NI connect without community presentations isn't that interesting.   

I would augment that with "...without community presentations OR (many) R&D presentations...". I went to several and almost all were of the Marketing variety of NI presentations, while I think there was just the one from AQ on Interfaces that I felt was really valuable. I do like the exposure to new products, but I get the most value from the advanced software presentations that R&D brings as well as the community presentations.