What all can LabVIEW do ?

[Dan Bookwalter]

Maybe someone a suggestion here ..... I have to explain to my bosses

boss what "ALL" LabVIEW can do , which is sort of impossible , I have

looked at some of the stuff online and I don't think it is in depth

enough , I actually don't like the heavy reliance on the Express stuff

!!! He started mumbling something about C/C# and .NET which scares me a

little.... One of our other facilities is pushing flukes NetDAQ

software/hardware stuff , but it really is just for data collection

etc...=20 I am sure others have been through this same issue.....

Suggestions ?

Thanks

Dan

[PaulG.]

QUOTE(Dan Bookwalter @ Aug 15 2007, 10:56 AM)

Suggestions ? ...

What I did: SHOW him. I don't know if you have the same luxury, but I had an unused copy of LV lying around in my lab about 9 years ago. I loaded it up, bought a "How to" book on LV and started playing with it. Within a week or two I was writing code that was automating a lot of my instruments in my lab. Within a month I had automated some of our entire testing processes. The boss was quite impressed. And I've been a LV guy since.

[Dan Press]

Dan,

You have been creating test and automation applications in LabVIEW for years! I've seen your name countless time on this forum and on Info-LabVIEW. You should have plenty to show. Wait, did you switch companies? Last time I checked you were at Stoneridge. We've built several test systems for Hi-Stat here in Florida. All of them are LabVIEW based. (of course).

Perhaps the best approach if your boss doesn't know anything about LabVIEW would be to open up the pallets with all the analysis functions. Explain that most of that would have to be programmed and integrated from scratch in some text language. Of course, you can use third party libraries in text-world, but that takes time to understand and debug too.

Good luck!

[Dan Bookwalter]

QUOTE(Dan Press @ Aug 15 2007, 11:54 AM)

Dan,

You have been creating test and automation applications in LabVIEW for years! I've seen your name countless time on this forum and on Info-LabVIEW. You should have plenty to show. Wait, did you switch companies? Last time I checked you were at Stoneridge. We've built several test systems for Hi-Stat here in Florida. All of them are LabVIEW based. (of course).

Perhaps the best approach if your boss doesn't know anything about LabVIEW would be to open up the pallets with all the analysis functions. Explain that most of that would have to be programmed and integrated from scratch in some text language. Of course, you can use third party libraries in text-world, but that takes time to understand and debug too.

Good luck!

Dan

Yes i have been at this LabVIEW stuff for a long time and there are all kinds of examples around here in the lab , but , it doesnt seem to be good enough for them.... actually its the guys in Sarasota that say they dont (or dont want to) use LabVIEW , or at least it was explained to me that way. And since the same guy is over us and them he wants to standardize operations etc... so I was hoping that maybe someone had a good presentation put together , although it would almost be an endless presentation to go into everything , I am probably going to end up walking him through the lab and explaining what all we have done with it and what all i would like to see done yet.

Dan

[rpursley]

You might mention the point that was being established throughout NIWeek. LabVIEW is currently able to handle multicore/multiprocessor machines much better than other development systems at this time. Parallelization is key to future software development and the development tools for most other languages do not handle it very well yet.

QUOTE(Dan Bookwalter @ Aug 15 2007, 12:27 PM)

Dan

Yes i have been at this LabVIEW stuff for a long time and there are all kinds of examples around here in the lab , but , it doesnt seem to be good enough for them.... actually its the guys in Sarasota that say they dont (or dont want to) use LabVIEW , or at least it was explained to me that way. And since the same guy is over us and them he wants to standardize operations etc... so I was hoping that maybe someone had a good presentation put together , although it would almost be an endless presentation to go into everything , I am probably going to end up walking him through the lab and explaining what all we have done with it and what all i would like to see done yet.

Dan

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

The NI site has lots of real world examples in various fields.

Try looking here: http://www.ni.com/solutions/customer_solutions.htm

Good luck! I worked several years ago for a company that used C & CVI for test coding, and they wanted my group to change. Luckily, we had a large enough group and a manager that loved LabVIEW.

[PJM_labview]

QUOTE(Dan Bookwalter @ Aug 15 2007, 09:27 AM)

Dan

Yes i have been at this LabVIEW stuff for a long time and there are all kinds of examples around here in the lab , but , it doesnt seem to be good enough for them.... actually its the guys in Sarasota that say they dont (or dont want to) use LabVIEW , or at least it was explained to me that way. And since the same guy is over us and them he wants to standardize operations etc... so I was hoping that maybe someone had a good presentation put together , although it would almost be an endless presentation to go into everything , I am probably going to end up walking him through the lab and explaining what all we have done with it and what all i would like to see done yet.

Dan

Dan,

Answer then: LabVIEW, like any porgramming language, can do anything that you want to do; from application that control hardware to application that have no interaction with hardware.

<Shameless plug>

As an example of application with no hardware interaction, show them http://jkisoft.com/vipm/' target="_blank">VIPM. This should make them understand that anything can be done.

</Shameless plug>

PJM

[Jim Kring]

QUOTE(PJM_labview @ Aug 15 2007, 11:56 AM)

<Shameless plug>

As an example of application with no hardware interaction, show them http://jkisoft.com/vipm/' target="_blank">VIPM. This should make them understand that anything can be done.

</Shameless plug>

<Even more shameless plug>

If you can convince them that VIPM was actually written in LabVIEW (I once had trouble convincing someone that it wasn't written in C)

</Even more shameless plug>

[orko]

QUOTE(Dan Bookwalter @ Aug 15 2007, 07:56 AM)

Maybe someone a suggestion here.....I have to explain to my bosses boss what "ALL" LabVIEW can do

It depends on how technically savvy the bosses boss is...

You can show them all the technical bells and whistles of what LabVIEW is capable of doing (and I would) but what really impresses most of the management types is the support behind the software, and it's relatively short learning time for new employees. You may want to show them the developer's zone and all of the established resources that are freely available, including the impressive store of drivers available through the IDN. Of course, let them know about the hundreds (thousands?) of users that collaborate and share information/sollutions on the LAVA and NI forums.

For our convincing, all we really had to show them was that there was a programming environment that was well suited for engineers and would integrate with *any* instrument that they could think of (even all of the obsolete junk that was still powering our HPBasic test racks). But the key was to convince them that it would continue to support new advances in technology and would be easily learnable by new hires in the future. We also let them know that there were NI supported courses that would get someone up to developer speed in under a month's time. That impressed the heck out of them.

Everything after that was gravy.

Good luck!

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

I recommend reviewing the document on NI's site 'Can LabVIEW C" http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/2718

This may give you some ammo against the nay sayers regarding the capabilities.

And I'll echo the comment a few posts up. LabVIEW is a programming language and you can do ANYTHING with it. Aside from the fact that it is bloated at times, that bloat gives you so much functionality, you could choke a donkey with it.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

Don't fight this battle alone.

Let NI do their job. Get the local sales guy on the line and let him work on showing the higher-ups what LV and NI have to offer. If your oragnization wants to standardize LV out of the game, NI has a lot to loose.

Make a phone call.

Ben

[orko]

QUOTE(NormKirchner @ Aug 15 2007, 01:36 PM)

Aside from the fact that it is bloated at times, that bloat gives you so much functionality, you could choke a donkey with it.

I can hear the new coined term in use now....

"Wow! That last release was a real asschoker."

[Aristos Queue]

An effective demo... get a C programmer or Java programmer to write the standard "random number strip chart" VI ... two parallel loops updating two displays. Compare the code between them. Point out to your boss that anything that C/C++/JAVA can do, LabVIEW can do as well since they're all complete programming languages. The advantage is the natural parallelism and the code readability to layity. The very fact that your boss can understand the LabVIEW code and probably not the other may go a long way to convince him that the overhead of bringing a new hire up to speed on a LabVIEW code base is generally less than the overhead of getting them to learn a C/C++ code base. That savings right there may be enough to convince.

[Val Brown]

QUOTE(Aristos Queue @ Aug 15 2007, 03:43 PM)

An effective demo... get a C programmer or Java programmer to write the standard "random number strip chart" VI ... two parallel loops updating two displays. Compare the code between them. Point out to your boss that anything that C/C++/JAVA can do, LabVIEW can do as well since they're all complete programming languages. The advantage is the natural parallelism and the code readability to layity. The very fact that your boss can understand the LabVIEW code and probably not the other may go a long way to convince him that the overhead of bringing a new hire up to speed on a LabVIEW code base is generally less than the overhead of getting them to learn a C/C++ code base. That savings right there may be enough to convince.

Bear in mind that this is really a religious question masquerading as a data/scientific/programming issue. It's the old question of: "who's a REAL programmer and what language do they use" And it's driven by the "other guys" who probably use C/C++ and are really terrified at how simple and easy LabVIEW is in comparison. Of course, they undoubtedly don't think of it that way -- they think of it as a "functionality" issue (and, of course, LabVIEW is a "toy" or "just not serious") or some other "spin" -- but the bottom line is that you can use what they do -- easily -- in your code but the converse isn't true. That's one big vote for consolidating operations using LabVIEW and not the converse.

So remember that for "the other guys" it will feel like a fight to the death -- it won't be an academice or rational discussion about the real pros and cons of any particular language. And it won't be that BECAUSE it's an identity issue. As has been pointed out above, it's really difficult to not see how LabVIEW is really the better choice. There are simply too many ways it which it really outstrips other languages, esp in terms of support, scalability, maintainability and ease of learning.

And, yes, bring your DSM into this loop. Let NI know what's at issue and see how much they bring to the table to help you present your case. If the bosses et al are al all interested in functionality -- and not just driven by their prior committments to other language and such -- it will be a virtual "no-brainer" for your company to standardize on LabVIEW.

[jzoller]

Something I haven't seen on this post: money. Depending on the organization, it may be the only language your boss' boss knows, speaks, or cares about.

Your NI sales rep should be able to quantify benefits for you there as well.

Joe Z.

P.S. Orko, that was magnificent

[Val Brown]

QUOTE(jzoller @ Aug 15 2007, 09:33 PM)

Something I haven't seen on this post: money. Depending on the organization, it may be the only language your boss' boss knows, speaks, or cares about.

Your NI sales rep should be able to quantify benefits for you there as well.

Joe Z.

P.S. Orko, that was magnificent

Yep, money is a good one and, given all of the others, if the organization doesn't go for using LabVIEW as its standard, it will be pretty clear that it really wasn't and isn't a "technical" issue but an identity/"religious" one. And they're the toughest of all to deal with.

[orko]

QUOTE(jzoller @ Aug 15 2007, 09:33 PM)

P.S. Orko, that was magnificent

I promise to try and turn the drollness down a notch tomorrow.

Today was one of those looooooong days with not enough caffeine breaks. Now I'm trying to equalize it with sufficient amounts of :beer: :beer:

[dannyt]

QUOTE(jzoller @ Aug 16 2007, 05:33 AM)

Something I haven't seen on this post: money. Depending on the organization, it may be the only language your boss' boss knows, speaks, or cares about.

Your NI sales rep should be able to quantify benefits for you there as well.

Joe Z.

P.S. Orko, that was magnificent

I would not go done the money route, I think that the cost of the LabVIEW full development license is very expensive, and not a plus.

<small rant on the side )

This is doubly true for us Europeans, where, companies like NI and MS seem to never have heard of a thing called the exchange rate.

<rant over>

We have two groups writing test software here, one with LabVIEW and one with Python & Jython (a java variant of Python), other teams on this site are using Java, Perl, Linux C compilers.All the above are free except the LabVIEW. We often had manager asking why we should be paying so much for LabVIEW when x,y and z could do thier test software free.

Please note, I know and understand NI has development costs to cover and I am NOT implying that LabVIEW should be free (would be nice thought ) but I do think the costs are on the high side, especially if you are an individual developer or working for a small organisation.

One particular problem with this is that since we recently have been taken over by a large multinational, I now have the opportunity to move from LabVIEW 7.0 to LabVIEW 8.2.1, yippee !!!

HOWEVER with the LabVIEW 7.0 I am able to run legally at home (see below Section 6 of the LabVIEW license), we bought several copies it a while ago; but if I do move forward to 8.2.1 I will no longer be able to do this as we will be running concurrent use license from a licence server and there is no way I can afford my own licence as an individual. So I have simple option stay with LabVIEW 7.0 or give up playing and doing stuff at home.

just my two pence worth.

Danny

6. Home Usage Exception. Notwithstanding anything in this Agreement to the contrary, if you are a business or other entity, the designated Named User for (or in the case of single seat license, the primary user of the single computer on which the SOFTWARE is installed and used under) the applicable license may also install and use the SOFTWARE on one (1) computer located in such user's home; provided the use of the SOFTWARE: (i) is pursuant to one of the licenses enumerated in Section 2 above (other than a concurrent use license) and (ii) on such home computer is limited to work performed in the scope of such person's employment with you and further provided such person promptly deletes the SOFTWARE from the home computer upon the termination of his or her employment with you or termination of this Agreement (whichever is earlier). Notwithstanding the foregoing, If you have a concurrent use license, this Home Usage Exception does not apply to

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE(Dan Bookwalter @ Aug 15 2007, 12:27 PM)

And since the same guy is over us and them he wants to standardize operations etc... so I was hoping that maybe someone had a good presentation put together , although it would almost be an endless presentation to go into everything , I am probably going to end up walking him through the lab and explaining what all we have done with it and what all i would like to see done yet.

QUOTE(jzoller @ Aug 16 2007, 12:33 AM)

Something I haven't seen on this post: money. Depending on the organization, it may be the only language your boss' boss knows, speaks, or cares about.

The other type of money involved is investment. Is your boss prepared to replace or rewrite the existing set of tools deployed in the lab? Do you use instrument drivers from NI or the vendor that might require writing? The value of drivers alone (rewriting in C, testing) may help you.

[orko]

QUOTE(dannyt @ Aug 16 2007, 01:17 AM)

HOWEVER with the LabVIEW 7.0 I am able to run legally at home (see below Section 6 of the LabVIEW license), we bought several copies it a while ago; but if I do move forward to 8.2.1 I will no longer be able to do this as we will be running concurrent use license from a licence server and there is no way I can afford my own licence as an individual. So I have simple option stay with LabVIEW 7.0 or give up playing and doing stuff at home.

Have you asked your NI rep about this yet? The reason I ask is because I'm fairly certain that you can use a concurrent license on as many computers as you want, as long as there are no more than the number of seats you purchased using it at the same time.

Also, I think there is a way to activate home machines from within the volume license manager. See step 9 of this document.

[adriaanrijllart]

Another argument: the number of toolkits for LabVIEW.

Have you seen any other programming language with so many add-on tools (Signal processing, Filter design, Vibration analysis, Modulation, Visual analysis, ...)?

And a last one: the number of NI alliance members.

In any domain of application, you will be able to find NI alliance members. They can help you to solve problems that otherwise would take you too much time, and they can provide support if it is not available from within your organisation.

Good luck,

Adriaan.

[Irene_he]

QUOTE(Jim Kring @ Aug 15 2007, 03:29 PM)

<Even more shameless plug>

If you can convince them that VIPM was actually written in LabVIEW (I once had trouble convincing someone that it wasn't written in C)

</Even more shameless plug>

What is wrong if looking like LabVIEW? LabVIEW looks good.

But, indeed, VIPM interface does look very nice and comfortable.

Irene