How to achieve LV intermediate level?

[wenxing]

Hi,

After a few months' familiarization with LabVIEW, I would like to ask some questions about how to get prepared for NI Certificated LabVIEW Developer examination. As of associate developer, some of the advanced programming topics such as synchronization and design patterns are discussed though not elaborated. At this stage, I think trying to read more VIs developed by others and practice developing by myself are of the the highest priority. My question is what is taught in NI Intermediate Course in terms of programing techniques. If I will not be able to attend the course, what should I pay most attention to when I am building up my LabVIEW experience especially in an effort to take the CLD examination?

Thanks in advance!

[i2dx]

After a few months' familiarization with LabVIEW, I would like to ask some questions about how to get prepared for NI Certificated LabVIEW Developer examination. As of associate developer, some of the advanced programming topics such as synchronization and design patterns are discussed though not elaborated. At this stage, I think trying to read more VIs developed by others and practice developing by myself are of the the highest priority. My question is what is taught in NI Intermediate Course in terms of programing techniques. If I will not be able to attend the course, what should I pay most attention to when I am building up my LabVIEW experience especially in an effort to take the CLD examination?

the CLD exam is relatively easy, if you have *some* programming skills and if you take care of the following advice:

1. take yourself at least 15 minutes to read through the task again and again. make sure you have understood ALL parts of it. Your worst enemy in the CLD exam is time! You have only one try, and if you get into the situation that you have reached a dead end ... good luck

2. create the frontpanel and add documentation to EVERY control and indicator. Documentation is at least 30% of the exam!

3. use a simple state machine with an enum as case selector.

All CLD tasks can be solved within time, if you use a simple state machine. DO NOT use a queued state machine with a producer/consumer loop, you will run into trouble handling all cases and catch "unwanted actions" and finaly run out of time.

4. suppress panic if you run short on time. make sure your VI is running (NO BROKEN ARROW!). If there is a bug in functionality, just keep on programming. With a little luck, this bug is considered as minor bug and you will loose only a few points ...

5. DO DOCUMENT

add documentation to every control, wire, case, constant, VI etc, do not forget "free labels" on every wire of your state machine.

6. do not use locals, globals, property nodes if you are not forced to. all tasks can be solved with pure data-flow

BTW: I reached 98% in the CLD exam ... the missing 2 points were for 2 missing constant labes in the block diagram

good luck!

CB

[wenxing]

Thanks very much for the reply.

There is a list by NI for the test takers of CLD to take care of, shown below:

1. Boolean

2. Memory

3. Multi-threading

4. Property node

5. Variable

6. DLL

7. ActiveX

8. VI server

9. Synchronization

10. File I/O

I also found not all the aspects should be mastered in order to develop a fully functional VI in CLD. A state machine architecture should always work fine. In addition, with state machine architecture and documentation taken care of, the chance of passing is high given the VI is functional.

There are two more questions:

1. About programming style: CLD will be marked according to three aspects, namely function, style and documentation. My concern is about scalability, which means adding functionality should be easy for the existent VI. How can this be ensured?

2. About written part: Since most of the knowledge covered in the Intermediate Course will not be accessible. Where can be materials be found to read, particularly concerning memory allocation, DLL, ActiveX and VI server?

[Mike Ashe]

A good book to read that gives you specific training to prepare is the third edition of "LabVIEW For Everyone" by Jeffrey Travis and Jim Kring.

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

I have not really ever understood the point of developer certifications. From a developers point of view, a certification may be some sort of competetive advantage. I however expect past work to prove much more than a certificate. From customers point of view a certificate doesn't really prove anything as the most important thing in software development is never the actual straigth forward problem solving that the certifications most often test.

[labviewgeek]

NI also offers an online course to prepare for the CLD

CLD Prep Online Course

[wenxing]

I have not really ever understood the point of developer certifications. From a developers point of view, a certification may be some sort of competetive advantage. I however expect past work to prove much more than a certificate. From customers point of view a certificate doesn't really prove anything as the most important thing in software development is never the actual straigth forward problem solving that the certifications most often test.

In my opinion, the certification offers a systematic and effective path to better understanding of LabVIEW, especially for the students. Examinations often have a preference over written tests over practical tests. I think I might learn more when preparing for the written part of CLD. Topics like architecture, memory performance, and connectivity will not be paid attention to if not instructed. They however are essential to mastery of any programming language. For the practical part of CLD, I think NI just wants to make sure that anyone who passes the certification should not be aware of the theoretical stuff only. Those who can finish the written part and the practical part should possess the ability to ripen the development skills by themselves in the years to come. It also helps my C++ programming style though.

[Richard_Jennings]

NI also offers an online course to prepare for the CLD

CLD Prep Online Course

Hmmm... at $295.00 for the online training course I think you're better off buying Jeffrey & Jim's book AND mine and Gary's book. I'm a little biased towards ours :thumbup: LabVIEW Graphical Programming, 4th Edition McGrawHill, 2006

We put a lot of work into making sure it covered all the material on the CLAD and the CLD. There are even some practice exams for the CLD.

I wouldn't use the CLD as a study guide for writing good LabVIEW applications. In general, I found the application requirements written in a way that almost forces you to use antiquated architectures - polling, etc...

i2DX has some good advice above. Just remember it is a timed test

Richard

[Mike Ashe]

Hmmm... at $295.00 for the online training course I think you're better off buying Jeffrey & Jim's book AND mine and Gary's book. I'm a little biased towards ours :thumbup:

<snip>

We put a lot of work into making sure it covered all the material on the CLAD and the CLD. There are even some practice exams for the CLD.

Although I was a reviewer for the LabVIEW for Everyone, 3rd Ed and there fore am obviously biased as well,

I would heartily second Richards AND. You can buy both books for just under half of the NI course, and you qualify for free shipping as well. :thumbup:

Don't get me wrong, I think the NI quality is great, and the course IS worth the money. But NI charges a premium price for everything, and you can get better bang for the buck with these two books.

YMMV

:beer:

[jccorreu]

For those 2 book recommendations...

What about now, 2 years later? Is there much about the new versions of labview that would change or are not covered, or are the books still valid?

I am in the position of having to pay for my training and certs on my own. I know I can pass both the CLAD and CLD right now. But I'm worried about missing something important from the intermediate course. My goal is to get certified yes, AND i also want to imporve my labview, and fill in gaps in my knowledge... And go on toward my CLA.

I've got books:

Learning with labview7 express

Software Engineering approach to labview

Labview based advanced instrumentation systems

Also what about books:

Labview style guide

Labview Advanced programming techniques