labview certification useful ?

[fenny]

I want to know how useful is LABVIEW certification?

  how hard is it to get it?

what resources are available for such exams?

[tbob]

Some companies regard its value, some do not.  It would be highly desirable to have the certification if you are a consultant.  It adds a feather to the contractor's cap and helps to get better jobs (more pay).  We have one person here who obtained his certification.  He was publically recognized and given a token award, but his overall position has not improved any.  But he is highly regarded for his efforts and is recognized as an expert.  Maybe he will get a bigger raise or bonus at review time.

You can get training material from NI's website.  Search for Labview certification and you will see a link to it.  I've been told the test is quite difficult.  Most people do not pass on the first try.  I know of one individual who is quite proficient at Labview, and it took him three tries.  They grade you on programming style as well as functionality.  One of the requirements is that all user actions (button presses and such) must take place within 100 milliseconds, meaning if a user clicks a button, the action meant to happen must start to happen within 100 milliseconds of the button click.  So if you are in a loop and the user clicks a button, you have 100 mS to get out of the loop and act on the button click.  This calls for a lot of reference calls, open vi by reference and such.

You get graded on the number of bends in your wires, less bends resulting in more points.  Points are subtracted for hidden wires, wires going under functions, improper layouts (right to left execution flow).  I think that using tip strips is required.  So if a user hovers over a button, a tip strip must appear explaining the button's action.

I'm sure the training material will explain more.  I personally don't have any desire to get the certification at this time.  Perhaps if I decide to become a consultant after retirement, I will definitely seek it.

[LV_Pro]

Additionally, if a company is a National Instruments Alliance member they are required to have someone on staff that has a certified labview developer certification or higher (architect) to maintain their status as a full alliance member. National Instruments definitely views certification as an indicator of a level of ability. The most difficult part of the exam is doing everything within the allotted time. You are given a problem to solve and within the time limit you have to figure out a method to do it, and then code it, using good, neat programming techniques, with appropriate documentation. The exams are graded on functionality, style (neat wiring, using currently in vogue techniques, like queues vs. globals/locals, etc.) and documentation. One of my friends, who is a _very_ good LabVIEW programmer, hadn't seen LabVIEW 7 before, his customer still using 6.1, and so he wasn't familiar with the "big icons",  different pallettes, etc., and didn't know that one could configure the environment for the look and feel of 6.x. He didn't finish it in time and I think it was mostly because of having to search for stuff and make mental context switches in the strange environment. The first thing I did in the exam was to configure everything the way I was comfortable with, the second was to make some sub-vi templates, with prefilled documentation, so that I just had to remember to type in the actual vi specific info, rather than retype it every time (I do that with "real" new projects).

There may not be a particular value added to getting the certification, If you are in a steady job (whatever that is), not working for an Alliance member company, and not expecting to change jobs soon. It is fairly pricey (particularly if you work for a company that is small enough that your absence will loose billable hours!) and it does require, for most circumstances, two days as it is a two part exam, usually given in two different locations (at least in this part of the world, New York). The first is a "written" exam, multiple choice done on a computer, the second is the "practical" exam, described above.

National Instruments also has an online (live when I took it) prep class to see if you are ready for the exam. It doesn't necessarily prepare you for trying to write the practical exam's code under the stress of the exam on a strange computer, but it will tell you if you are totally not ready.

Good luck, whatever your choice, and happy wiring.

P.M.

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 10-26-2005 02:06 PM

[Ray.R]

I agree with the previous posts..

In addition, preparing for the test will be quite useful.  You'll learn a great deal and have even more fun when developing code.

😄

[fenny]

can you still remember some example problems of a real test? I just want to know what it really looks like?

how much is the time for the practical part? and how many problems are there?

[LV_Pro]

When you take the exam you sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I can't tell what was on my exam, But, if you do a search of the NI site using "example exam" as the query NI has a number of examples of previous exams (might even have the one I was given, didn't look). One thing that would be nice would be if they returned your exam copy at some point, as they do tell you what they didn't like, etc. when they graded your exam, and it would be nice to have it to look at to see what thy were talking about. But, since they probably keep problems in the exam set for a while that would make it more likely that people would see current exams. As I said, for the practical part of the exam the biggest difficulty is the time limit. For the written part (usually taken at a different time, it is a prerequisite for the practical, you get a Certified Associate LabVIEW Developer certification if you pass (CLAD)) they do come up with questions that I didn't "know". I say "know" because if you asked me I wouldn't be able to easily answer, but my mouse hand knows when I'm wiring! As the previous poster (JLV) said, studying for the exam is useful in that you will be exposed to what is currently considered the correct way (at least by the NI judges) to write LabVIEW. I say currently because I still remember the examples shipped with LV 2.5, with little error cluster chaining, lots of sequence structures, etc. They didn't have the over use of globals and locals as a fault, because we didn't have those in LV2.5 !

Good Luck,

P.M.

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 10-27-2005 10:03 AM