[Alan Anderson]

I learned how to program by emulating examples. I got good at programming by writing programs. I got very good at programming by writing programs in collaboration with other programmers, where each piece of software was treated as a contract to perform a specific task given certain conditions.

I learned LabVIEW by reading the documentation, following the examples, and going through the provided tutorials. I know a lot about how it works, I can usually make it do what I want, and I can often do a good job of explaining to others how to make it do what they want. I'm not at the level of proficiency where I can just wire things up without first doing some analysis and planning.

David, I believe you will always have trouble with LabVIEW until you set aside what you already "know" about programming. You can't understand a dataflow language well by attempting to apply concepts from procedural programming languages; you'll likely get stuck on the superficial similarities and fail to grok the true nature of things. Go through the online videos with an open mind and as little preconception as you can.