Pros and cons of using Labview?

[alex.lew]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

One big point in favor of LabVIEW is that it's the language used by the company which provides the robot control system.

Another plus for LabVIEW, at least in my experience, is that it's possible to have multiple people looking at the screen while someone edits the code, and everyone is likely to be able to follow along without getting lost. I think it's a very good environment for one or two "master" programmers and a collection of "apprentices".

...

When developing or debugging, being able to run a program "interactively" with full access to the data values and any front-panel controls and indicators is a huge bonus for LabVIEW.

Agree with both of these points. 1912 switched to LV from C++ for the first reason. We only wanted to contact 1 supplier for our (inevitable) controls problems. Haven't looked back since, the support from NI is outstanding.

Additionally, several mentors use LV everyday at work, Stennis Space Center. They've even coordinated "LabVIEW for FRC Mentors" workshops. So there are definitely applications for LV in the workplace.

The fact that you can have an indicator for, say, encoder values is extremely helpful. In 2012 and 2013, we ran a PID loop for our shooter wheel. Tuning the PID loop would have taken a lot longer without indicators.

Before this season, I believe LabVIEW was the only option that had a FIRST-provided simulator. I'm not sure what the feedback for FRCSim has been this year, but the LV simulator was incredibly useful for having new students play around with. We beta-tested that feature several season ago and instantly loved it - especially now that the simulator is the current game field.