Best way to start?

[Ginto8]

Lessee... Though I don't have a whole lot of practical experience regarding this, I'll put in my 2 cents.

I've been using LV a lot more recently, and it is my opinion that it is very good for rapid development of tools for data display, but not as good for actual program logic. Though that's not to say that you can't have a good bit of program logic in a labview program, it is definitely not one of its stronger points.

For C++, there are some more factors. Do you simply want to be able to put together a program that works, or do you want more reusable code that can easily be adapted to different situations that can come up? For the first option, you don't necessarily need a lot of skill, but if you want the second option (without horribly messing things up), you probably want more than just a few months' experience. I have been working on personal projects using C++ for about 2 years now, and I'm only just starting to really get the hang of what's required for the 2nd choice.

So, in conclusion, if you want an easy-to-learn way to program, that you can put together fairly quickly, go with LV. If you want a flexible, robust way to program - which is used in many practical areas - C++ is, for the most part, the better choice.