[Radical Pi]

We have 2 programmers (including me), both of us were already fluent in C++ when we joined the team, so there was no argument over what language to use. I have done a fair amount of work in LabVIEW though (dashboard, some NXT programming before I discovered NXC), and I still prefer C++ and other text-based languages too.

On the argument over which language is better, I'd still have to go with C-style. In terms of useability, LabVIEW winds (it's by far the easiest to pick up), however in the more technical aspects it starts to fail. Have you ever looked at a disassembly of a LabVIEW program? I have (for NXT), and it does not look very good. I compared it side-by-side to a disassembly of an NXC program that does the exact same thing, and, even on a VM specifically designed for LabVIEW, the C code is so much simpler. The problem? No optimization. Lots of messy things show up in the LabVIEW that are just totally unnecssary for the operation of a simple program.

This of course, is not meant as a disrespect to LabVIEW. I'd imagine that during the switch from ASM to C there was the exact same argument of asm being so much more efficient than the C equivalents. What made the final difference? We figured out how to optimize the assembly so that the advanced structures of C took as little code as possible, and now it is super-hard to outperform C code in asm and still get a great program.

LabVIEW certainly has a future. It just needs that same time to mature and be able to match the output of the more established languages. Simple numbers can show this need. Earlier in the topic, I saw people talking about ~3 minute builds and downloads for LabVIEW. In C, I don't think I've clocked a full build and download in more than 45 seconds. Usually much less (on a pentium III to boot). Give LabVIEW time to become a high-performance language. Maybe not for the current generation of programmers, but give it 20 years, and I wouldn't be surprised to find dataflow languages creeping into our game engines (assumming the GNU guys get their hands on the language. It's a bit too pricey at the moment)