CLVUG Project - Lifecycle of a LabVIEW Developer

[CAS_MattF]

Lifecycle of a LabVIEW Developer

Date: Proposed 12/11/2025, Revised 1/15/2026

By: Matt Fitzsimons

Contributions by: Bryan Kennedy

Objective:

Follow the LabVIEW journey of Peter, a new engineer assigned to develop an automated traffic control application for an industrial PC. The system being automated is a standard traffic light that includes a dedicated turn lane. Throughout the project, the system requirements evolve—mirroring Peter’s growing expertise with LabVIEW architecture and development practices.

Across multiple user‑group sessions, the solution is iteratively re‑implemented using progressively advanced software architectures. The series begins with a basic, novice‑style state machine with minimal reuse and heavy copy‑and‑paste coding. Each subsequent session introduces improved design patterns that enhance modularity, testability, reusability, and long‑term maintainability. Along the way, we highlight the training, resources, and insights that expand Peter’s LabVIEW skills and demonstrate how architectural choices directly affect code quality and sustainability.

Program Structure at a Glance:

• Cadence: One session per quarter using expanding requirements throughout.
• Start Point: Naïve, novice implementation (flat state machine + ad‑hoc code).
• End Point: Modular, reusable, asynchronous, testable, maintainable
• Time: Should be an hour or less to allow additional presentations at the user group meeting
• Evolution Path: Each meeting introduces new requirements with evolving architecture/pattern and refactors the solution accordingly.
• Source Control: Tagged branches per architecture, a shared test suite, and comparison dashboards.
• Participation: Allow everyone to download the code between meetings. A developer at Peter's current level should be paired with a CLA to develop the code for the next meeting.
• Outcome: A portfolio of implementations showing the practical impact of training and architecture choices.

Proposed Meeting Agenda

1. Proposal/Recap (5 min): Last session’s findings & key pain points.
2. Concept (15 min): Architecture and requirements overview, why it fits, trade‑offs.
3. Code Walk (20 min): Diff from previous, patterns used, boundaries.
4. Demo (10 min): Run tests, show metrics dashboard & plots.
5. Retrospect (10 min): What improved? What regressed? Action items.
6. Homework (5 min): Discussion to prepare for next session.

I’m looking for feedback on whether this would be a strong project for the CLVUG 2026 meetings, as well as suggestions on how it could be improved.