View Single Post
  #12   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 23-10-2008, 00:28
Joe Hershberger Joe Hershberger is offline
National Instruments
AKA: jhersh
FRC #2468 (Appreciate)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Rookie Year: 1997
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 148
Joe Hershberger is a name known to allJoe Hershberger is a name known to allJoe Hershberger is a name known to allJoe Hershberger is a name known to allJoe Hershberger is a name known to allJoe Hershberger is a name known to all
Re: Distressing news about LabView for FIRST

Quote:
Originally Posted by dmlawrence View Post
Of course there are team members with Windows machines available. As I mentioned above, we will need Windows regardless to download code to the cRIO. In my opinion, the real value of the Mac edition is that team members that live in an all-Mac household (myself included) will have the opportunity to study and learn about Labview in a more comfortable and familiar environment. Many of these team members may not be able to obtain a Windows license, or may not possess the time or technological acumen to set up a working Windows environment.
I can see some value in this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dmlawrence View Post
I do not expect NI to port new components to the Mac simply at the request of a FIRST team. However, it is another matter entirely to provide a piece of software that already exists. I understand that the existing Mac version has some additional limitations, but in many use scenarios, it would be far more convenient.

The Labview student edition is available for Windows only. As far as I can tell, the cheapest version of Labview for Mac is the full development system, at $2599. Dual boot presents additional challenges, like creating an extra hard drive partition - which might require the purchase of a larger hard drive.
I know that Danny Diaz has mentioned that requests for Mac / Linux versions of LabVIEW would be considered... email frc at ni.com. It must be understood that if the request is approved, what you would be getting would not include any of the FRC specific libraries or any of the RT related software. One reason for not including the Mac / Linux versions with the kit is to eliminate the confusion about full support for development on those platforms.

I think that if you use one of these other platforms natively, you should not expect to develop robot code on it. As stated by Joe Ross, it can be done. Unfortunately it will be cumbersome and error prone. The dashboard applications, on the other hand, are a perfect fit for these native platforms.
Reply With Quote