CLD example review

[SteveChandler]

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@MattBradley wrote:

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). 

This is the first I have seen of the new practice exams. When did they make the real exams harder?

[GregFreeman]

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@Lucither wrote:

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). 

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I completely agree. My CLD exam was considerably longer than the examples (Car wash/traffic light). I was very rushed at the end but got it cranked out. Like everyone said, the documentation is very important. But my God it's harder than you think to force yourself to do it when you are so concerned about the code! It was like pulling teeth making custom icons for my controls! One tip for the tip strips, you can save yourself a lot of time by just setting them programmatically to the label of the control. Then you don't have to right click -> properties for every single one. I mean you have to give your boolean a descriptive label or caption anyways, so why not use this to your benefit. Then as you code, you don't have to worry about forgetting tipstrips, it will set it for every control no matter how many you add

 

[SteveChandler]

I have always questioned the value of a tip strip when it is the same as the label or caption. It seems redundant.

I am not saying not to use them on the exam! You will be graded on them so just do it!

But in "real life" I rarely use tip strips. Especially if I have a button that says "Exit". That seems descriptive enough. But I do set tip strips programatically on ocasion. Especially if a button has different behaviour depending on the state. Or if I have a listbox I sometimes set the tip strip to display the number of items whenever I set the Strings[].

[GregFreeman]

Yeah, I always think tipstrips are overkill for buttons with names on them already. They should be used for extra description or buttons that are only icons -- good examples are icons on internet explorer (or really any other browser). But for the sake of the exam, it's worth using.

[JÞB]

For(imstuck)

I'm going to beat on you just a bit for that snippet.  Please, take it as constructive criticism because I believe you just gave some poor advice on control and indicator documentation.

Discriptions should contain information for the developer.  You don't usually see them unless your in edit mode with help on but GOOD discripions can really make it easy to understand what the control controls or what the indicator indicates.  For instance this is the Documentation for the control "Comparision" from my reuse lib poly "Compare Anything.vi

As you can see- this aids the development effort by making it easy to select the correct comparision type if my co-wirers forget the mnemonics.

Tip-Strips need to give the USER information on how to interperate data or operate the VI.  The same control has the following tip- strip "Select the type of comparison to make"  Clearly telling the user what will change or occur when the control is activated.  "Compare Anything.vi" also has a boolean LED indicator "Result" the Tip shown to the user if they care to investigae what this means is "Illuminated (True) if comparison is met."

simply writing the label to the tip-strip gives neither the user nor the developer any more information than is obviously currently available - so IMHO it is not "documenting" the object.

[SteveChandler]

I just posted a micronugget on using the caption for a tipstrip.

I would NOT suggest doing this on a CLD exam!

[Gak]

To SteveChandler

I did take 5 hours to complete it. Actually I had designed it completely different, then deleted my code and again did coding.

As this was my first attempt, I concentrated more on coding style and neglected time. .

And on top of that I did it in office, so little bit office work came in between.

Next time I will try to finish it within time.

Thanks all for replying and adding their valuable comments.

I really appreciate.

Also if you think actual exam is more  tough then can any one could give me example to solve ?

If anyone have...or have time to design it.

[SteveChandler]

The four hour limit is pretty strict. But as others have pointed out you don't need it to be fully functional. Make it as functional as possible and really try to get the style and documentation points.

It can be kind of tough to come up with an idea for a project. A fun one is a simple calculator.

Use a cluster of buttons for the digits and functions. Functions are +, -, *, /, square root, =,  memory in, memory clear and memory recall.

The display is an array of clusters of eight LED indicators. Use seven square indicators resized and arranged to look like a seven segment display. The eighth is a round LED used for the decimal point.

There is also an LED to indicate if the memory containis a non-zero value.

That is not a good example of a requirements document that you will get for your exam but it is a good excersize.

[TamaraDan]

Hi everybody!!!!

I have solution for Car Wash CLD example, please can you review it and give some advice???

(Sorry for taking your time)

[Dennis_Knutson]

Please post to the Certification board.

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Certification/bd-p/Certification