Hello! I'm Tom Bress, the author of Effective LabVIEW Programming, the upcoming book under discussion here. I'm a CLA and a CPI. Thanks, everyone, for the input. In response, I'd like to give you some background information about the book and the way that it is structured. The purpose of the book is to help beginning-to-intermediate LabVIEW programmers learn to "think in LabVIEW". I wrote the book because I wished that there was something like it back when I was preparing for the CLD exam. There aren't that many LabVIEW books out there. Many of the beginner books focus on the mechanics of how to navigate the graphical interface. There are books that are exhaustive references of all LabVIEW functions. There are books about data acquisition, image processing and other specialized topics. This book is different. This book focuses on how to think in LabVIEW, how to use dataflow, and how to create state machines. The book uses only the core LabVIEW functions that are used in most VIs: loops, case structures, event structures, queues, etc.
I decided to use the published CLD exams as the basis for the book. One of the published exams is about a car wash with two user-selectable sequences, an Economy wash and a Deluxe wash. The car wash states are timed, and the timer pauses when the vehicle moves out of position. The timer picks up where it left off when the vehicle moves back into position. I use this exam throughout the book to illustrate LabVIEW concepts.
The chapters alternate in a regular pattern. In one chapter I discuss a new concept, in the next chapter I show how to use that new concept in the car wash VI. Each chapter builds on the chapters that came before it. Each version of the car wash VI presented in the book is an upgrade of the version that came before it. Eleven problem sets with full solutions to every exercise are also included in the book. The problem sets are based on all of the other published past CLD exams (traffic light, boiler, security system, a second car wash exam, sprinkler controller, and ATM controller). Here is how the book is laid out:
- Ch. 1: LabVIEW basics for the complete beginner
- Ch. 2: Functional specifications and state transition diagrams
- Ch. 3: Problem Set 1 (basic exercises, sub-VIs, etc.)
- Ch. 4: The classic state machine (no queues or event structures yet)
- Ch. 5: Action engines (functional global variables)
- Ch. 6: Building a timer action engine for the car wash VI
- Ch. 7: Problem Set 2 (action engine exercises)
- Ch. 8: Building a classic state machine car wash VI (uses the timer action engine developed in Chapter 6)
- Ch. 9: Problem Set 3 (classic state machine exercises)
- Ch. 10: Event structures
- Ch. 11: Upgrading the car wash VI developed in Chapter 8 by adding an event structure
- Ch. 12: Problem Set 4 (event structure exercises)
- Ch. 13: Queues
- Ch. 14: Upgrading the car wash VI from Chapter 11 by adding a queue
- Ch. 15: Creating a data acquisition state machine VI (I couldn't ignore this topic completely!)
- Ch. 16: Problem Set 5 (queue exercises)
- Ch. 17: Preparing for the CLD exam
- Ch. 18: Problem Set 6 (guided walkthrough of the sprinkler exam)
- Ch. 19: Problem Set 7 (guided walkthrough of the ATM exam)
- Ch. 20: Adding arguments to state machines
- Ch. 21: Upgrading the car wash VI from Chapter 14 by adding arguments
- Ch. 22: Problem Set 8 (arguments exercises)
- Ch. 23: LabVIEW classes and data encapsulation (replaces the action engine timer of the car wash controller from Chapter 21 with a timer class)
- Ch. 24: Problem Set 9 (LabVIEW classes exercises)
- Ch: 25: Inheritance and Composition (adds car wash cycle classes to the car wash controller from Chapter 23)
- Ch. 26: Problem Set 10 (inheritance and composition exercises)
- Ch. 27: Producer-Consumer state machines (builds producer-consumer car wash VI based on the car wash VI developed in Chapter 25)
- Ch. 28: Combatting race conditions (fixes a race condition in the car wash VI using semaphores, etc.)
- Ch. 29: Extending the language (fixing the race condition in the producer-consumer car wash by creating a custom class for handling the queue)
- Ch. 30: Problem Set 11 (more exercises with classes)
- Ch. 31: Wrapping it up (review)
There are also a lot of appendices containing the functional specifications for all the CLD exams and complete solutions for every exercise in the book. All of the codes developed in the book will be downloadable from the publisher's website.
Hopefully this addresses some of the concerns raised in the previous posts. I didn't use templates because the whole point of the book is to learn how to internalize dataflow and learn to build VIs from scratch. The LV Core classes take the same approach. Event structures are indeed covered in Chapter 10, but really it is covered right after action engines and state machines, again just like in LV Core 1.
The book is long, but it is not as long as it looks. About a third of the book is dedicated to the problem sets, problem set solutions, CLD functional specifications, etc. The book is in full color and is loaded with figures (mostly screenshots of the VIs). There are so many figures that I half-jokingly refer to it as a "LabVIEW coffee table book". The first chapter on LabVIEW basics is pretty long since I wanted the book to be accessible to beginners and there is a lot of material to cover, but you can skip that and jump in wherever you want based on your LabVIEW background. The book is tightly focused, but it covers a large range of topics from LabVIEW basics and state machines to more advanced topics like LabVIEW classes and parallel loops.
Finally, as AristosQueue mentioned, any LabVIEW book that shows actual working VIs is going to be subject to the personal style quirks and idiosyncrasies of the author. That was my biggest concern while writing this book. I wanted to include a lot of code, a lot of meat, because so many LabVIEW programmers are lone wolves that work in isolation. They don't have the luxury of studying other people's code to improve their own coding skills. I wanted the book to be full of examples of working code of decent-sized projects done in good style. Of course, others will disagree with my style choices. But at least there will be something out there for the lone wolves to study. In my defense, I have had a number of people both inside and outside of NI review the book and critique my codes. My codes follow the general guidelines laid out in Blume's LabVIEW Style Book (an excellent choice for preparing for CLD exam).
I'm sure that there will be criticisms of my codes and I'm sure that I will learn much from them, but I have tried my best to ensure that my readers will not be steered off a cliff by studying the codes presented in the book. I'm sure that I will get many good suggestions from the LabVIEW community for improving the book, hopefully I will get the chance to incorporate them someday in a second edition. In the meantime, I sincerely believe that this book will help anyone preparing for the CLD exam, anyone trying to make the leap from spaghetti code to state machines, or anyone interested in learning more about using LabVIEW classes and/or parallel loop architectures.
