Learning to Love TestStand

[crelf]

I know this isn't a TestStand forum, but I really liked this article from Rowdy Dave. Especially "...regardless of how much faith you have for a particular tool, keeping an open mind to the fact that there may be better tools out there to use in certain contexts is a healthy state of mind to have."

http://davidpcl.com/2014/10/11/learning-to-love-teststand/

[hooovahh]

It's worth a read for sure, glad it was un-deleted.

 

I still struggle to know when TestStand should be used, simply because for me the barrier to entry is higher.  Oh you want to bring in another test tool?  So developers that know some LabVIEW but have no TestStand experience will only be useful for developing pieces.  And there is a development license cost, and run-time license cost?  

 

That on top of the fact that we have many already made tools for doing limits, test selection, reporting, manual control, etc.  

 

Don't get me wrong, I know TestStand's power, and in most testing applications, if all things were equal I would use TestStand, but unfortunately all things aren't equal, and being able to justify it to myself, and to management is difficult.

[jcarmody]

I'm leaning back toward TestStand, even though everyone else is moving away.  I figure that a debug/deployment license is a drop in the bucket compared to a new ATE, and a deploy-only license is nearly free.  (I work for a larger company where I'm not questioned about $600.)  I want to leverage TestStand's user management, database and reporting pieces, but the debugging opportunities mentioned in the article are also valuable.

[V_T_S]

The drawback is the base deployment fee per seat. Other than that execution engine, database logging, report generation, user authentication are very useful features and saves lot of development time.