Opinions wanted: LabView-based controller?

[Danny Diaz]

From what I gather, LabVIEW is actually being used in prototyping.

Not only that, but a LabVIEW prototype is quite different than most other prototypes. Have you ever heard of the Segway-like system developed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute? Here's a link to a description of their project.

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/pub/p/id/177

They did the prototyping in LabVIEW, and in no time flat they took the prototype code and ported it to a real-time controller and had a functioning system in less time than it takes most companies to decide whether or not they're going to scrap a prototype or keep working on it.

If you are using a cRIO, the power there is the FPGA involved. You can offload most of your hardware processing to the FPGA, and handle all your "software" work on the controller itself (why should you do stuff like counting events in software when an FPGA can do it in hardware?). Once you have your FPGA running like you want it, the same code you used to program the FPGA can be given to a fabricator to make you a chip. How many CmpE and EE students wish they could use LabVIEW FPGA in class to program an FPGA rather than have to know YET ANOTHER language (VHDL) to do it? <raises hand> Yeah, it's that powerful.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

... I think at this point, C, C++, and the Microsoft .NET languages (C#, VB, and I think there's more but I can't recall them right now) are in the most demand.

Yep, I can't argue with that. However, not everybody is a programmer. How many people do you have on your team, and what percent of them don't code? The power of LabVIEW is that you don't have to be a programmer to write functional LabVIEW code - by incorporating LabVIEW, you are going to be able to involve the non-CS members of your team more readily. I'm not saying it will be immediate, however, but you're going to be able to empower students who have never touched a text-based language in their lives, and shockingly enough they'll probably write the best code. If you're skeptical, that's exactly how it works in industry. In LabVIEW you don't have to write complicated code to get complex results.

Then there's the FIRST LEGO League effect. How many students have programmed in RoboLab? How many of them will now be able to program in LabVIEW? The results are stunning. Again, watch the NI-Week Keynote videos, especially watch Thursday's video. Then tell me what you think.

-Danny