topic Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI in BreakPoint

LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

M37Eddie — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 18:11:12 GMT

Having only about 6 years of LabView experience under my belt I must admit that I dont' have much knowledge of LabWindows/CVI. Occasionally I will browse the careerbuilder & monster.com web sites to see what career opportunities and job openings there are for LabView programmers. However it just seems like I happen to notice more job openings posted for LabWindows/CVI programmers rather than LabView folks in the geographical areas that I might be interested in. I've even had more than one headhunter call me and ask me if I had any LabWindows/CVI experience even though my resume' clearly indicates that I do not. In fact the latest recruiter who contacted me told me over the phone, "Oh, I rarely have any call for LabView programmers. It's mostly LabWindows/CVI." One hiring manager told me during a phone interview, "We'd NEVER consider changing from LabWindows/CVI to LabView." I hope I'm not guilty of trying to compare apples to oranges here but does LW have capabilities far superior to LV? (again I'm NOT LW/CVI literate at all)

Strictly for my own edification, does anyone know what the industry usage of LabView vs LabWindows/CVI is? Is one more prevalent than the other? Is there more of a demand for LW/CVI folks than LabView people? Sometimes I seem to wonder whether or not I made a poor career choice by choosing the LabView route rather than going down the LabWindows/CVI path. Is there any good comparison of the two products out there? (I haven't found one yet.)

I must confess that I've never had more fun programming than what I've enjoyed working with LabView.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jr_2005 — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:34:51 GMT

I work for the largest European Defence company, and it has looked at VEE, played with LabView, but standardised on CVI for test applications. It is just so powerful and flexible. From a military perspective, documentation and code maintainability is so much more important than in the commercial world and again this favours a conventional text based language in preference to a visual one.

Besides, Labview is just for college students, isn't it? Real programmers use CVI!

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

Ray.R — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:10:05 GMT

hoooooo..... jr_2005...

That's bold! 😉

I've worked with LabView, LabWindows-CVI and TestStand..

Personally, I prefer Labview. It does why I need to do and fast!. But... let's concentrate on your question: Was Labview a good career choice.

If you want to work in the world of defence (integrators or bopard-level suppliers), they much prefer CVI. Why? I don't know. They just didn't want LV. Even when I showed them how fast LV can provide a solution. They want something that anyone can modify in the future and that is standardized.. for instance ANSI-C, LabWindows-CVI...

However, in other tech sectors, they are happy with anything that will cost them less in the long run.. thus LV.

As a matter of fact, 75% of my contracts involved LV versus 25% CVI. Don't let recruiters and Monster board influence your career.. well... we do need jobs, don't we? I've never had a job through those paths anyway.. Always (or mostly) word of mouth from personal networks..

Nevertheless, there are advantages to knowing CVI.. Especially when dealing with embedded people. 😉

RayR

LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:38:43 GMT

It's been a while since this topic has not been discuss and i have question about that.

I'm investigatin Test Stand + LabWindow/CVI or LabVIEW in order to modernize automatic test procedure in my companie. I've been through basic tutorial for those three products. I have an extensive C background so on first hand i'm more seduced by an approach Test Stand + Labwindow. But my knoledge on those IDE is not really extended and i'm basicly wondering

- What is the most use ? Maybe depending on what industrie it adress.

- Is there one that provide a better integration with NI hardware and PXI racks than the other.

- Is it easy to design your own driver for LabVIEW

- A basic list of pro and cons would help me to understand the philosophy of those two products.

Thank you

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

tbob — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:43:13 GMT

Having recently worked for a defense contractor, I can give the main reason why CVI is preferred over Labview, at least from that company's perspective. Code comparison. You can use any diff tool on a text based language. It is easy for a government auditor who knows nothing about programming or testing to use a diff tool on a text based code. They can see that there is a difference or there isn't a difference. Then they ask an expert to explain if the difference is good or not, or has caused a problem, or has been the culprit of a major catastrophy. With Labview, they would need to enlist the help of a Labview guy to run the VI Compare utility. Government auditors don't like this. This reason alone supercedes all arguments about Labview being faster, more suited to test, and any other reasons one may come up with. I think it is truly sad that something as trivial as a compare utility dictates CVI usage. But isn't that par for our governement?

PS: I have been employed in the Labview environment for over 25 years. I keep getting calls from recruiters looking for someone with Labview experience. When I had to switch jobs, I've had my choice of 2 or more jobs to choose from, even lately in this weak economy. The jobs always involved Labview. Even the defense contractor used some Labview. So there is a big demand for Labview and it is a viable career choice.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:08:27 GMT

I'm not looking at that matter on a career approach, i'm working in a big Avionic company and in order to reduce cost i'm assessing new means of test. I have the same feeling about you about the fact that version controls, and more important, requirment tracability is better in ANSI C. But i also need to take in account time to market, learning curves, and overall engineering cost.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

tbob — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:13:52 GMT

Considering time to market, learning curve, and overall engineering costs, Labview beats CVI hands down. I can write test apps much quicker in Labview than in CVI. I've done both, I know this for a fact.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

LV_Pro — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:27:29 GMT

There would be a shallower learning curve to go to CVI with an extensive C background. The documentation/comparison arguements are also valid. I did work in the defense industry, for one of the largest in the world, and it has and is still using LabVIEW extensively on a number of projects. I in fact was the one to introduce it to the fairly large facility I worked at back in 1992. Recently, contracting to another company that was sub-contracting to "The Big One", I wrote much of the signal generation and shaping code for a sonar project using LabVIEW Real-Time and FPGA, something that would have been VERY much harder using C, would have involved VHDL coding or Verilog, to accomplish. It was supposed to be a 3 person 6 month project, ended up being a 1 person 7 month one, but if I had to write a realtime replacement in C, etc., that had parts running on an FPGA it would have taken me longer (even when my VHDL/Verilog/C++ skills were sharp).

Not apples to oranges.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:36:00 GMT

So besides, comparison/documentation according two you guys Labview is more efficient. So what was the point of National Instrument to come up with CVI ?

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

tbob — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:49:32 GMT

@jyce wrote:

So besides, comparison/documentation according two you guys Labview is more efficient. So what was the point of National Instrument to come up with CVI ?

To satisfy government contractors.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:52:53 GMT

Well i do only have to deal with the FAA and production testing is only relevant for TSO certification. So i have the feeling that this should not be an issue in our case. I have to admit that i would have like to have CVI defender (if there is some) to privode more argument 🙂

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

tbob — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:01:34 GMT

@jyce wrote:

Well i do only have to deal with the FAA and production testing is only relevant for TSO certification. So i have the feeling that this should not be an issue in our case. I have to admit that i would have like to have CVI defender (if there is some) to privode more argument 🙂

You won't find any CVI defenders here. However, you may find quite a few on the LabWindows/CVI board.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

Ben — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:11:28 GMT

@tbob wrote:

@jyce wrote:

Well i do only have to deal with the FAA and production testing is only relevant for TSO certification. So i have the feeling that this should not be an issue in our case. I have to admit that i would have like to have CVI defender (if there is some) to privode more argument 🙂

You won't find any CVI defenders here. However, you may find quite a few on the LabWindows/CVI board.

There is one or two.

We USED to teach CVI and the instructor would alos do CVI projcts if the customers insisted. His estimation methodolgy was

A) Estimate how long in LV.

B) Multiple by 2 to estimate the CVI version.

We don't each it anymore (bring in NI to teach it when it gets scheduled) since there was not enough demand.

Take a look at that forum (linked by tbob) and then look a the LV forum. What you will find is that there is a lot more support for LV than CVI.

Ben

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

F._Schubert — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:38:07 GMT

I think the best reason (already presented) for CVI is that you have a C background.

As cool as LV is, you need to get used to the new wiring 'dogma'. Look at the 'Local variable' thread here on breakpoint to avoid mistakes when using LV with a C background. Post code in the LV forum and be prepared to be attack harsh by some of us (we try not to do, but it happens). We are very nice and helpful persons, but we are pedantic when it goes about coding style.

If I remember correctly, there was a blog by Bob Harburger (?) who presented a CVI perspective on LV. You really might be intersted to get a CVI voice. If I remember correctly (again) he once voiced something like 'sect' (much politer) about the LV community. We all think it's superiour, we preach it, and you are either doing good code or the C-guy's mistakes. You should be able to google his blog.

You can try it using an eval version with a small project and post frequently to the forum and ask for criticism of your code.

On the very big pro side, if you want to learn LV, are open to the data flow paradigm: nothing will stop your coding if you combine it with the power of your C experience (if you need to write wrappers, interface hardware very low level....).

It would be a benefit for you if you have a background in EE, uml or anything else that likes to draw pictures instead of writing text. But be open minded is enough.

I tried to show you the con's of LV as good as I can. So join the 'sect'.

Felix

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:48:08 GMT

Ahaha, i have extensive software, and low level software background. But i have moved to hardware designer board and FPGA levels. I'm fairly flexible to lean new stuff and concept, i actually do love that.

But my job right now is to assess options and recommend the best option to programm management. And i will probably never have to write anything with LV or CVI.. I'm already playing with tutorial in LabVIEW after i tried the one in CVI and integrate all those little guys in TestStand. That is why i have to find the best compromise. If i was following my guts i would keep recommend to write drivers in C. And GUI using QT4. But i'm trying to lineup with industrial standard here. 🙂

I will have a look on the blog you talked and keep brainstorming with you guys

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

Ben — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:51:40 GMT

The availability of help is something that you should be concidering. I can shed no light but I would be interested if it was easier to find C developers that LV.

Ben

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:23:19 GMT

I do agree that the involvement of the community is an other criteria to take in account. The way i measured it was just by looking at the number of topicson the forum between LabVIEW and CVI. They are fairly close to each other but it would be more intereseting to have the actual total of posts instead of topics.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

F._Schubert — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:31:06 GMT

If you say you won't be the programmer at the end:

pro LV: If you are just a bit used to LV, it's very easy to see what's going on in the code of other programmers and judging how well they perform. You need to know the design patterns (and the advanced ones that are not common knownledge but discussed in the forums). But I think the graphical code of LV is much easier to read on a large scale than any text based code.

con LV: It then really depends on the willigness of the individual that needs to code it to get data flow or not. You won't have that problems getting a phyton or java used programmer to do CVI, as you would see with LV. If you can choose a fresh EE grad or of similar domain or can request for an LV specialist, really go for LV; otherwise CVI could be the safe bet.

Felix

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

Dennis_Knutson — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:18:14 GMT

History lesson:

I used LabWindows before LabVIEW. That was before there was a CVI at the end. It was a DOS program and did not run on any type of ms windows OS. When windows 3 was introduced, NI ported LabVIEW to that and I started using LabVIEW. NI then ported LabWindows to the windows OS and it gained the /CVI.

I mostly use LabVIEW but with TestStand, it's very handy to have CVI since much of the built-in steps and some of the special operator interfaces are written with CVI. Since it's so easy to mix and match LabVIEW and CVI steps, you can really use whatever you want. At my last job, a lot of the front end work was done with CVI and then all of the code at the end was LabVIEW. You use the best tool for the job.

Note on traceability - The NI Requirements Toolkit works with TestStand, LabVIEW, and CVI in the exact same manner. I also think the industry type is pretty irrelevant. I also know for a fact that there are large aerospace companies that are heavily invested in LabVIEW.

Re: LabView vs LabWindows/CVI

jyce — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:27:47 GMT

Well it would be nice to have both but i'm going to have a hard time explaining managmement we need to by development licences for three differents tools 🙂