Waveforms vs DDT?

[fborlc]

I am not sure I understand the difference between the dark red waveforms and the dark blue dynamic data. Are the below operations equivalent? Which way is "better"? (Assuming my signals are interacting with a PXI and USB DAQs)

[johnsold · Accepted solution]

I think they produce the same net result. One is never quite sure with the DDT.

I do not know of any highly experienced LabVIEW user who likes the DDT.  Champion Dennis Knutson refers to it as "evil."

The waveform is well defined: It is a specific type of cluster containing a timestamp for t0, a Double for dt, an array of Double for Y, and optional attributes. The DDT is more like a variant in that almost anything can be converted to DDT, but the conversion process is hidden behind a wizard and there is no way to tell what is in there by looking at the wire.  LV will make a suggestion about how to convert the data but you have no way of knowing whether it is a good suggestion or whether you got all the information whiich was hidden in there.

If you avoid Express VIs (again, as do many experienced LV programmers), you do not need to worry about DDT.

If DDT went away, I would not miss it.

Lynn

[Dennis_Knutson]

Evil indeed. The ddt hides so much information and it allows some very bad code. You can write the same ddt wire to a graph, a numeric indicator, a Boolean, and who knows what else. It just confuses things unless you know what you are doing and most beginners do not.