Taking a break from LV

[jzoller]

After 15 years of making LV do oddball things, I'm moving on to text coding for my day job.  I may still do a bit of LV here and there, but not much anymore.

 

I hope LV can catch up in features and ecosystem to some of the languages that have surpassed it.  It's an amazing language... I just wish it were used in more places, for more things.

 

Thanks, everyone, for the insight, advice, and fun over the years.  You all have my deepest respect for the amazing things you've done for the language and the community.

 

Joe Zoller

joe at underflow_software dot_com (no spaces or underscores)

 

 

 

 

[gleichman]

It seem's that you've already given your farewell speach.

 

http://lavag.org/topic/16486-back-to-c/#entry100884

 

So, what are the features that LabVIEW is lacking that are crucial to completing your projects?

[jzoller]

<rereads post>... Hrm.  I guess you could read it that way, if you wanted.  Actually, I was working with C++ in parallel with LV on a multi-platform thing.  It was fun.

 

And, as tempting as it is to be that guy, I'll pass on the gripe list.  Feel free to fill in your own.

[ShaunR]

After 15 years of making LV do oddball things, I'm moving on to text coding for my day job.  I may still do a bit of LV here and there, but not much anymore.

 

I hope LV can catch up in features and ecosystem to some of the languages that have surpassed it.  It's an amazing language... I just wish it were used in more places, for more things.

 

Thanks, everyone, for the insight, advice, and fun over the years.  You all have my deepest respect for the amazing things you've done for the language and the community.

 

Joe Zoller

joe at underflow_software dot_com (no spaces or underscores)

 

Good luck. Be sure to poke your nose in from time to time.

 

I find that I'm having to resort to DLLs almost all of the time nowadays because the functionality just isn't there and when that happens, you might as well write it in a text language (they usually have working examples and don't always translate well). Apart from getting  the UI advantages of modern visual languages; interfacing to  DLLs is a works or crashes the IDE kind of deal. in LabVIEW which.makes you just give up and write it in something else.

 

You still cannot beat LabVIEW for DAQ, Control or prototyping, but outside of that it has severe limitations for commercial applications. I understand the move but I am lucky in that it's not an either/or decision for me. I can use whatever I think is appropriate.

[gleichman]

I wasn't looking for gripes against LabVIEW. I was asking what features of your new environment made it worth the learning curve, but it sounds like you changed due to things you didn't like about LabVIEW.

[jzoller]

ShaunR: Thanks!  Your work on systems has been awesome to watch from afar.  Thanks for taking part in making the JSON stuff into a real library.  Unfortunately for me, most shops seem to be an either/or proposition on the languages they use.

 

gleichman: Ah, I see.  So: there are many more jobs.  The pay is better.  I can program nearly full time without needing to do sales/project management/QA/manufacturing/PCB design/what have you... that is, the job IS largely programming.  LabVIEW can't seem to get away from the "programming as a second job" mentality, where the heavy lifting belongs to the consultants.  And since I'm not really happy consulting... <shrugs>.

 

As far as LabVIEW, I've always suffered from wanting it to be a general purpose programming language.  Alas, it never happened.  Even the hobbyist version got nixed.

[Jordan Kuehn]

 Even the hobbyist version got nixed.

 

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11225

[jzoller]

The student version's been around for quite a while.  And it's been crippled the whole time.  I was thinking more like the original thread from the idea exchange.

[Jordan Kuehn]

I know the student version has been around, but this is LV being distributed to the hobbyist market regardless of the version.  I do agree that a home/personal version would be very nice and help expand the scope of the language.