Preface
One of my most concerns, after finishing the book still is that the relationship of this book and the rest of the many of the other valuable functions is not appropriately mentioned.
What I would like from the readers to explore tons of videos and descriptions of functions from the www.NI.com.
Throughout the book I have tried to keep a balance between information for a novice to LabVIEW to intermediate user. I am came to this conclusion by more than a decade of working as design and automation and converting systems (hardware/software) from many other languages and hardware to products from National instruments mostly LabVIEW and and TestStand.
I believe I did not even use the word TestStand in the book; which I myself believe is an atrocity to such software and how one completes the other one. I did so because these systems are not explainable in words and only a book and accompanying videos can do the justice to LabVIEW and TestStand.
During last decade experience of mine with these software and hardware, there was not one manager that disagreed with me on recommendation of switching the existing system into LabVIEW and NI hardware.
I spent many days on the how the whole structure of the book should be. And if you read further you see that I used few actual hardware from NI than actually I would liked to. In my experience I noticed many works that the engineers had hacked some LabVIEW coed into languages like C or even basic. But this comes at a coast.
Being a completely GUI, LabVIEW has this images that many people look at a VI and say that "oh.. I can do this" but if similar code is shown to them in C or Basic, then the same people think twice.
Here lies the dichotomy. Cost versus practicality. LabVIEW is costly. While one can find many C compiler for free, it is sometimes hard to convince the upper management to migrate or start with LabVIEW. I found the best way to convince "finance" department is to make several simple and maybe some more complicated examples of the same program in both languages. I insist on this point strongly with a tiny "but".
The fact is that there is not one language that can be used everywhere. As we speak new languages are created and used.
With all I said, I mostly want to achieve two crucial points:
- My first choice to consider for any job would be LabVIEW
- LabVIEW is not appropriate for everything that exists out there
There is another important point that I would like to emphasize is that since LabVIEW is also attractive in appearance also, it influences a new graduate or a new engineer to cut short the homework that they must do.
LabVIEW does come with some standard functions, but unlike other languages, implementing a function that is written by an independent engineer is very simple. This is more important that it sounds.
It used to be a major technology change would come not shorter than 6 months. But now ( 2017) hardly anyone can keep up with the advances in their own expertise let alone what is going on the rest of the world of technology.
Importance of formal education
When I first got my engineering job at "Packard Bell" not to be confused "Hewlett Packard" I could not relate what we had learned in school and university with anything my manager wanted from me. This sounds like a contradiction with the title of this paragraph. But trust me they finally come together.
What I am trying to emphasize here is that do not take formal education lightly. National Instrument has training classes and if you are serious about learning LabVIEW and/or LabVIEW is your source of income, try your outmost to participate in formal education by NI.
TestStand
I have come to believe that one may get away by using LabVIEW in very high percentage of the jobs actual that is exist out there now (of corset hi is a relative statement) But there is a another software that complements LabVIEW very beautifully. The software is called TestStand and I have consciously have stayed away from TestStand both of these giant software and hardware that do require many books ( at least two, one for each one) I strongly advice engineers that do automation tale a close look at the TestStand.
There is much help available
First of all like many other software companies, there is a technical help available from NI. In fact I believe one year of help is available with any purchase of LabVIEW. But also note that LabVIEW comes in more than one flavor choose the original version carefully.
