Coding with unreleased/unsupported LabVIEW features

[ned]

But I'm still kind of disappointed that I didn't discover something that hadn't been released.

Off-topic, but... why?

Let's say you do find something that hasn't been released: first, it's not like you're the first to know about it, since some developer explicitly put it there. Second, if I were your customer and found that you used an unreleased feature in code you supplied, I'd ask you to rewrite it using supported features, and then wouldn't hire you again. If you distributed a toolkit based on it I might look, but I wouldn't use it in code for my customers for the same reasons.

I'm not trying to discourage exploration - I've done my share of it even for work reasons when there was no other choice (and the worst part is, it was software from within the same company, we chose to use a machine that another group developed and then their software didn't fully support what we needed) - but keep in mind that unreleased features are not like finding buried treasure.

[crelf]

...keep in mind that unreleased features are not like finding buried treasure.

I'm using a feature in one of our core products that's unlreleased: only because I can't do what I need to in any other way. Thankfully it works wonderfully (and I hope it'll become a released feature in the near future). Without it, I'd be screwed. You could call that buired treasure - I sure would

...if I were your customer and found that you used an unreleased feature in code you supplied, I'd ask you to rewrite it using supported features...

I'd be inclined to agree with you iff the feature could be rewritten in supported features and I had the money to pay for you to do it. In my example above, I can't do it with supported features, and even if I could, it might take me 10x time to do it. As long as my customer is aware that I'm using unsupported features, they can choose to spend their money either way.

That said, I work for an NI Platinum Alliance Partner, and the support we get from NI is, well, platinum - even on unreleased features.