A CLAD fundamental Q

[crossrulz]

QUOTE (Darren @ Apr 14 2009, 03:16 PM)

Many of the VIs that ship with LabVIEW were written long ago, before too many people thought much about coding standards. We had the AEs go through and scrub all the examples a few years back, so a lot of those should have gotten better. As for vi.lib VIs, those don't typically get edited too much after being written. I do make it a habit to clean up any shipping VI I happen to be editing though (just did one this morning), so given enough years, I may single-handedly clean up vi.lib.

-D

Thanks for that info, Darren. I'm glad to hear that NI is at least trying to be a good example. I only complained because I see people all the time say "NI VIs look like this" and then they seem confused when they get in trouble in the exams for their style. They see a double standard. And I fully understand the old code thing. I recently inherited code from way back and the style was horrid. Were people just trying to stuff their code into as small of a screen as possible to save memory or something?

[Mark Smith]

QUOTE (crossrulz @ Apr 14 2009, 01:56 PM)

Thanks for that info, Darren. I'm glad to hear that NI is at least trying to be a good example. I only complained because I see people all the time say "NI VIs look like this" and then they seem confused when they get in trouble in the exams for their style. They see a double standard. And I fully understand the old code thing. I recently inherited code from way back and the style was horrid. Were people just trying to stuff their code into as small of a screen as possible to save memory or something?

Oh, you young child (just kidding) - you probably have never worked with 640X400 (or maybe even 800 X 600 if you were lucky) displays - that was typical when I started on LabVIEW 4. Sometimes those screens look crowded because we just didn't have any more space to work with.

Mark

[jzoller]

The editor is now a bit more graceful about large numbers of objects on the screen as well.

For the record: Working code > pretty code, and NI's attempts to normalize the coding style are much appreciated by those of us who inherit the disasters of the past.

Joe Z.

[Mark Yedinak]

QUOTE (mesmith @ Apr 14 2009, 03:40 PM)

Oh, you young child (just kidding) - you probably have never worked with 640X400 (or maybe even 800 X 600 if you were lucky) displays - that was typical when I started on LabVIEW 4. Sometimes those screens look crowded because we just didn't have any more space to work with.

Mark

Exactly. I have some old legacy code written back in the day on small monitors and that stuff is just crammed in there to fit on a screen. Also, I know that when I look at my old code I cringe at how it looks compared to the stuff I write now. Coding style matures over the years. It doesn't happen overnight and it takes some experience to figure out what works and what doesn't as well as what is good style versus crap.

[Francois Normandin]

QUOTE (Mark Yedinak @ Apr 14 2009, 06:03 PM)

Exactly. I have some old legacy code written back in the day on small monitors and that stuff is just crammed in there to fit on a screen. Also, I know that when I look at my old code I cringe at how it looks compared to the stuff I write now. Coding style matures over the years. It doesn't happen overnight and it takes some experience to figure out what works and what doesn't as well as what is good style versus crap.

We're slipping off-topic, but my legacy code is not bad because the screen was too small, it's bad because I used local variables and stacked sequences everywhere!!

If one kept his code to 640x480 and opens it today, it will simply take 1/4 of the screen...

[crelf]

QUOTE (normandinf @ Apr 14 2009, 06:38 PM)

...but my legacy code is not bad because the screen was too small, it's bad because I used local variables and stacked sequences everywhere!!

Code I did 10 years ago makes my eyes bleed ~

[shoneill]

QUOTE (crelf @ Apr 15 2009, 01:17 AM)

Code I did 10 years ago makes my eyes bleed ~

I'm pretty sure if somebody put some of my code from 10 years ago in front of me I'd start cursing the programmer left right and center.

And most likely rightly so.

Shane

[crossrulz]

QUOTE (mesmith @ Apr 14 2009, 04:40 PM)

Oh, you young child

Yeah, I haven't been around nearly as long as most of you. :worship: At least I know what a slide rule is!

As far as style being developed over time - as I look at my code from 2 years ago, I want to gouge me eyes out.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

QUOTE (crossrulz @ Apr 15 2009, 02:55 PM)

Yeah, I haven't been around nearly as long as most of you. :worship: At least I know what a slide rule is!

As far as style being developed over time - as I look at my code from 2 years ago, I want to gouge me eyes out.

According to http://books.google.com/books?id=hWSnSi7kI_kC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=LabVIEW+with+Style%22+--+A+Guide+to+Better+LabVIEW+Applications+for+Experienced+LabVIEW+Users%22&source=bl&ots=PSHSJVEHNi&sig=XA8s40OB3lveVJIE4hZxjW9nILs&hl=en&ei=7DPmSdL7DYvsnQf-55WiCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">the bibliogrophy of "LabVIEW Advanced Programming Techniques" by Richard Bitter the article "LabVIEW with Style -- A Guide to Better LabVIEW Applications for Experienced LabVIEW Users" was originally published in 1997. So give that book a little time to catch on and let the LTR spread, then tens years ago we just starting to settle on what good style was.

But even before reading the style guide I was already show my anal-retentive side. My first LV program was kind of pretty since I didn't know how to create clusters or arrays but did figure out how to grab a lot of code and do a create sub-VI. Since the resulting sub-VI used the worse case icon pattern to handle my 16 booleans in/out, it looked like a spider.

Ben

[RalcoBe]

QUOTE (shoneill @ Apr 13 2009, 02:24 PM)

But it's not, I'm pretty sure it's C, thus adding to the confusion.

So many interpretations....

I think a linguistics degree should be ...

My CLAD result is only 58%, where i am totally sure to know really enough to get easily 90%

While doing the test, my major problem was understanding some terms,

and trying to understand the real difference between some answers.

English is only my 3rd language, most of it I know from songs and movies.

I'm curious to see how much CLA architects would succeed the CLAD in their 3rd language...

.

[shoneill]

QUOTE (RalcoBe @ May 6 2009, 01:24 PM)

My CLAD result is only 58%, where i am totally sure to know really enough to get easily 90%

While doing the test, my major problem was understanding some terms,

and trying to understand the real difference between some answers.

English is only my 3rd language, most of it I know from songs and movies.

I'm curious to see how much CLA architects would succeed the CLAD in their 3rd language...

.

The problem lies partly in the question formulation and partly on the definition of the "right" answer.

The certification os geared towards fuelling the NI certification program. There, you learn the "correct" answers.

If I wanted to be nasty I'd say it reminds me of scientology.....

Shane.

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 6 2009, 07:32 AM)

The problem lies partly in the question formulation and partly on the definition of the "right" answer.

The certification os geared towards fuelling the NI certification program. There, you learn the "correct" answers.

If I wanted to be nasty I'd say it reminds me of scientology.....

Shane.

:thumbup:

Ben