CLD example review

[Gak]

Hi everyone,

I have started preparing for CLD. This is my first try with Car wash example.

Please spare your some time for my example and tell me few tips, corrections.

I know there will be many points, may be bugs in my program. Also let me know how I can avoid using local variables and still update "Wash Options" control.

I have two local variables. How bad effect it will have on scoring ?

Also let me know if you will give me passing score or not out of 40.

I hope there are less bugs.

[Prashant.C.S]

Hi Gaurav,

Am not any expert in LabVIEW. Out of curiosity, just went through your program.

Your program works really well.

Here are few of my suggestion. Hope it helps you.

In "Get Selected Tests.vi"

1) As there are set number of buttons to be checked for, I think it would be good if you use "for loop" instead of "while loop". 

2) Auto indexing can also be used instead of build array.
3) Within the while loop where you are searching for true, you can directly wire " i " value for the "start index" terminal of "Search 1 d array".

Thanks and Regards,

Prashant

[Prashant.C.S]

Hey sorry..

Auto indexing instead of build array would not help. you are doing it the right way..

[JÞB]

Gaurav-

You did several things right!

1. Code looks like it hits all functionality
2. Good use of comments in code
3. VI documentation and icons are present

A couple of things you did not do right

1. Keep Front panels compact and neatly alligned (saving "Maximized" is a pet peeve of mine.  You just can't see enough panels to compare sections of code.
2. missing control and indicator descriptions and tips. (Hint: when creating a control just open the property panel and enter all the data.  TIP STRIPS should always be available for every object the user can get at and would contain a lot of the FP comments that clutter the FP with data that can be popped-up when the user hovers over the element)
3. use captions to show default control values.  e.g. on Timer.vi control "Option" is an ok label hide it and show caption "Option (Count)".  see how this effects the readability of the help window for Timer.vi?
4. your AEs hide terminals.  Whenever possible (allways) keep  terminals outside the loop.  see the snippet revision of Read File.vi- has a few advantages over the original doesn't it?

Personally I would have used an event loop to enqueue and pass user generated commands to a state machine (more scalable IMHO) but overall the structure you have is satisfactory.

Nice work.

[MattBradley]

My advice is to get the easy points -- the documentation (tip strips) and style points.  Keep in mind that if you get all of those (25 points), you only need 5 out of 15 functional points to pass.  Most people (me included), focus heavily on the functional part -- which looks fine in your case.  But you have a large undocumented cluster (I know, it's probably intuitive but it's the grader that matters).

Also, the exams are much harder now.  I did 5 practice tests and finished all of them.  I could not finish the real thing.  I finished the practice security exam in 2.5 hours (including testing and documentation). 

One minor tip (which I wish I had thought of): If you have a bunch of the same type of controls, make the first, put in a tip strip, etc... and then copy and paste it.

[JÞB]

Points:

Style 0-15

Functionality 0-15

Documentation 0-10

total 0-40 passing 30

So nail style and documentation! these take little time or effort if you've developed good programming habits.  you only need 5 more points to pass 

Of course I'll ALSO argue that if you've developed the style and documentation habits you will be "coding by intention" since you had to think it  through to write the documentation and you've clairified your intended approach.  So you'll actually sling wire MUCH faster.

[Gak]

Thank you all.

I will definitely work on your suggestions and will post next example very soon.

[Lucither]

Hi Gak,

One bit of advice i would give you if you seriously want to prepare for the actual exam is to forget about the original mock exams (Security, car wash and traffic lights). Instead use the more up to date mock exams:

https://lumen.ni.com/nicif/us/ekitcldexmprp/content.xhtml

These are far closer in terms of degree of difficulty then the previous versions. In comparison i found the original mock exams very easy compared to the actual CLD exam. The exams on the link i have posted will far better prepare you in my opinion.

Haven't actually had time to look at your example. Will cast my eye over it when i have some spare time.

Either way good luck.

Rgs,

Lucither.

[Gak]

Hi Lucither,

I will wait for your comments. I do have same examples, Car wash example which I have attached is latest one.

Anyways , Thank you.

[SteveChandler]

Looks really good. I did see some overlapping stuff on the block diagram. My opinion is that it is better to go with extra block diagram size if you have to choose between that and having objects touching or wires going behind things. The enum constants are pretty close to the FGs and there is a boolean constant that could be iconified if you are using LV2010. If not using LV2010 you can put large clusters in a subvi with one terminal to emulate a cluster constant icon.

But overall it looks really good. I can only guess that you would pass. Did you get it right the first time in under four hours?