Thoughts on Software Sessions at NIWeek

[Elijah_K]

Hey everyone,

As we sift through the feedback from NIWeek here at NI, it occured to me that I'd like to hear thoughts specifically from the members of this group.  For those of you that attended, what did you think?  In particular, what did you think of the software track?  What would you like to see more or less of? 

Believe it or not, we start planning for NIWeek 2013 very soon, so now is a great time to share your thoughts and feedback!  Thanks

Eli

[soupy]

Overall I think the sessions this year were pretty dang good. I learned a ton!

The software track is pretty large. I'd like to maybe see it broken out into two tracks. perhaps a begginer and an advanced track. The more advanced sessions your offer, the greater chance i'll keep coming to Ni week (and not just download the slides later). I know that this separation somewhat exists right now, but it would be nice to know ahead of time that a session's target audience is beginner.

Add an "Ask the experts" session. To keep it organized, you could only answer written questions. Conference attendees would submit questions the first two days and it would be presented on the third. This would be a great opportunity for us to throw some crazy ideas out there! This session should be minimal work for you guys and maximum benefit for us.

I know that this parallels a course that you guys provide, but a session on labview performance would be really nice. Specifically, i'd like to see some power-user approaches to eliminating data copies.

[LVB]

ElijahK wrote:

As we sift through the feedback from NIWeek here at NI, it occured to me that I'd like to hear thoughts specifically from the members of this group.  For those of you that attended, what did you think?  In particular, what did you think of the software track?

I think we could both agree that NI needs to invest in some projectors that work or at least have a spare sitting around.    On a more serious note, I think the sessions were very good.  Thanks for all of the hard work.

A few things that I would suggest for NI Week in general:

• Advanced Sessions
  • I would agree with soupy's comments on the advanced track.  Advanced sessions are very important for seasoned developers (a large portion of customers who attend NI Week software sessions).
• Customer Round Tables
  • It would be nice if NI could help organize some additional round table discussions at lunch.  In the dining area, put up a sign for LVOOP, FPGA, Real-Time, TestStand, ...  Anyone who is interested in speaking about these topics over lunch would be welcome.  This would also spark more interesting discussions than how is the weather and where do you work/live.
• More Technical Keynote Sessions
  • It would also be nice if some of the "What's New in LabVIEW" was covered at the Keynote

[soupy]

Customer Round Tables

I second this idea. I wasn't able to make the AF round table this year

[crossrulz]

I didn't get to go, but my boss's number one complaint was that every session spent half the time talking about the new project templates.  He got a little sick of hearing about them.  He felt that they were a distraction from the true point of many sessions.

[David_Staab]

The subtext of that complaint could be that there was little else to talk about in this release.

*/me ducks*

[Elijah_K]

At the risk of sounding defensive, I would have to respectfully disagree. Between self-paced training, new vision algorithms, new analysis capabilities, toolkits, idea exchange improvements, inclusion of the Actor Framework, self-paced training, and all the new hardware, there were a lot of other features outside of the templates and sample projects.  However, our focus on the templates and sample projects was very much intentional, as we're very much hoping to give people better starting points for new systems - our belief was that their non trivial nature warranted focus and explination in multiple venues.  I hope that the rest of you found value in hearing about these and plan to use them.

Eli

*/me throws shoe at David* 

[crelf]

But apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, viniculture, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what has NI ever done for us?

*/me laughs at David and Eli*

[Daklu]

I agree with separating the software track into intermediate and advanced topics and like the idea for topical round tables at lunchtime.

Speaking for myself, the #1 criteria for any technical session I attend is that I learn something useful from it.  Ideally the presentation is structured such that the problem is specifically identified and the solution to the problem is demonstrated.  The NI sessions I attended were pretty good about that.  I thought some of the third party sessions lacked conciseness.  It felt more like the person was showing off the application they created instead of distilling what they learned and communicating it in a way that could be generally applicable.

I believe NI attempted to integrate more third party sessions this year.  I think that's a good thing and hope they continue.  However, it might be helpful for NI to encourage presenters who are demonstrating their applications to focus on 1 or 2 specific technical issues they encountered during development and how they solved them.  (This suggestion doesn't apply to overview topics like AF or object-based state machine implementations.  It's hard to reduce those ideas into a single problem statement.)

[Dmitry · Accepted solution]

Christopher Relf wrote:

But apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, viniculture, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what has NI ever done for us?

*/me laughs at David and Eli*

Right. Me thinks NI should have a Monty Python Technical Track next year. And embrace Monty Python culture as it's core value. And have 50% of multi choice CLA recertification exam questions related to such core values ...

" ...

  KEEPER:  Heh heh.  Stop!  What is your name?
  ARTHUR:  It is Arthur, CLA of the Britons.
  KEEPER:  What is your quest?
  ARTHUR:  To seek the Holy Grail.
  KEEPER:  What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
  ARTHUR:  What do you mean?  An African or European swallow?
  KEEPER:  What?  I don't know that!  Auuuuuuuugh!
  BEDEMIR:  How do you know so much about swallows?
  ARTHUR:  Well, you have to know these things when you're a CLA you know.

"

Or was it Arktur [Technologies] ?

*/me laughs at me*

You can find the entire sacred script here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mphg/mphg.htm