Just out of curiosity...what do you see the string/path/picture wires as?

[Sparkette]

As we all know, string wires look like this:

Path and picture wires look the same, only teal and blue respectively.

I'm just curious what all of you think; I know it doesn't matter, but what pattern do you see that wire as? I've always seen it like this:

You know, as a line with many bends in it.

NI probably intended it as something more like this:

I know this because arrays of strings look like this:

which is the same pattern extended another row.

What do you see it as?

[MikaelH]

I see this

[Sparkette]

I don't get what you're trying to say. But it did make me think of another reason NI intended it as the second pattern: because of the way the vertical wires look.

Also, I just realized, I posted the wrong image at the top of my first post. I meant to put the single string wire there, not the array. But we all know what it looks like anyway.

Edited July 2, 2012 by flarn2006

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

I'm not sure where you want to go with this. Speculating about intentions or not when there is a specific result that has been there since at least LabVIEW 2.0 is IMHO a moot point. To me a string always looked like a Meander but not strictly as it morpsh into a somewhat different pattern in vertical lines. Would it worry me? No absolutely not, as long as it looks different enough tho anything else to allow me to distinguish it from other datatypes. Ever looked at clusters and there "non-flat" clusters? flat clusters are clusters that can be typecasted and they are brown, while non-flat clusters can not be typecasted but only flattened and they are pink too.

And your format you claim was NIs real intention has no merits, since the borders are to small to be drawn. The line itself is already only one pixel and a pixel is still the smallest which can be drawn on modern screens, so that your small borders are simply not possible to be drawn. So intention or not it's not what LabVIEW does and therefore any discussion about what the intention may have been is pretty useless.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

Rolf, you have been a bit more grumpy than usual lately

Badly in need of vacations . and btw i'm old enough to have earned the right to be grumpy every now and then.

I applaud flarn's desire to dig in deeper. If we never asked questions about why something is what it is then we would never learn new things.

What I would give to have several weeks off, loads of beer and the source code for LabVIEW to peek inside

While I understand his desire to dig deeper in some other posts he did, I have to say that I do not see any sense in trying to see a specific intention in a pattern on screen that was chosen over 20 years ago, for some reasons, that might be obscure or not.

And I would also like to have a peek at the LabVIEW source code, except that I would most likely have to realize that it is just way over my head, so I pass that opportunity and keep myself in the illusion that I might understand it.

[Sparkette]

I'm not wondering why it is what it is; I'm just curious if other people see it the same way I do. So I'm asking, just for fun.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

I'm not wondering why it is what it is; I'm just curious if other people see it the same way I do. So I'm asking, just for fun.

Well I mentioned meanders before. Can't find an english wikipedia entry so here it goes in German. And then specifically the second line in the big picture.

[asbo]

True, actually I would far rather trawl through the Quake source code before LabVIEWs!

Have you seen the Quake 3 Source Code Review articles? There's some very interesting stuff in there. He also has articles on loads of other id software.

Well I mentioned meanders before. Can't find an english wikipedia entry so here it goes in German. And then specifically the second line in the big picture.

The English version of that article is not nearly as well fleshed-out.