Should Case Structures be replaced with..... Stacked Sequences!!!???!!

[Ray.R]

I was editing an example and right clicked the Case Structure... to my surprise, LabVIEW 2010 offered a suggestion to replace it with a Stacked Sequence Structure...

Is this a good idea?

Many already know my answer... But what do others think?

[altenbach]

I agree that this is one of the most useless functions and I believe I pointed that out before several times. 🙂 (It probably goes all the way back to prehistoric LabVIEW versions).

More useful would be to convert between case and event structures, but it does not seem to be a very popular idea. 😞

(So... two ideas that need more votes!!!!)

[Ray.R]

I have not yet voted on your idea.  It is certainly much better than converting to Stacked Sequence Structures.

I think the difficulty is the caveat that you pointed out in your idea thread.  It cannot create event assignments...  Which is the one issue holding me back from a vote...  Maybe we can explore an alternative..  An suggest a change to the menu.. Or at least remove the Stacked Sequence from the selections.

[altenbach]

I edited my comment and added another link.

It seems since the inception of LabVIEW, there actually was a single person that used that option once according to the first reply. 😄

Maybe it's not totally useless after alll  😮 ...NOT!!!!

[Ray.R]

You got Kudoed..

I guess I am not the only one who thinks it is an idea that should be implemented.

[JB]

I kudoed Christian's idea about 2 years ago. So I'm with you !

[SteveChandler]

I just kudoed it but am having second thoughts after reading Aristos's comment. I have never needed that and didn't know it was possible. But I sometimes inherit code written by others and the more refactoring tools the better.

A better idea would be if the convert case structure to stacked sequence structure poped up a dialog asking why and posted the answer here. 

[altenbach]

A case structure is so fundamentally different from a stacked sequence structure that I have a hard time even imagining why we need to switch between them.

Sure, converting from a sequence to a case structure help in re-architecting a program to a state machine, but it typically cannot be cleanly done, for example because all sequence locals will disappear, potentially breaking a lot of code and making a tangled mess.

Converting from a case structure to a stacked sequence is really not needed, because the same functionality can be achieved by wrapping a FOR loop and wiring [i] to the case selector. This leaves the option open for a more full featured state machine in the future. Converting someting like this to a stacked sequence just because the cases execute in sequence is not reason enough to change it to a stacked sequence. There is no advantage! All we would do is painting outselves into a corner and making the existing code less flexible and less maintainable.

[SteveChandler]

I totally agree and would be hard pressed to find a use for converting a case structure into a stacked sequence. The other way yes definately.

But it came in handy one time for one person. Since that will probably never happen again I am leaving my kudo on the idea

[Ray.R]

I totally agree with Christian.

The only case structure that would translate into a Stacked Sequence would be one that is indexed fromletys say 0 to n.  But why would anyone ever want to do something silly like that?  It's like taking a round wheel and making it square..!!!

D'euh!!  (sarcasm intended)