Do labVIEW programmers get any RESPECT where YOU work?

[Broken_Arrow]

I'm starting to get irked at the comments from C and even VB users who think LabVIEW is... well I'm not sure WHAT they think it is -- schematic capture for programmers?. For example, the other day in a meeting, I told the crew that I had to change part of my code to accommodate a hardware change. The C programmer looked over and said "So, you have to draw some pictures?". In another meeting, I recall another C programmer proclaiming to the entire audience that "LabVIEW is basically good for talking to hardware, and making fancy buttons."

So many of them think that LabVIEW is just a GUI for NI cards. When I tell them that 90% of my apps don't even use NI hardware, their eyes just glaze over. I honestly think some of them believe there's an LabVIEW "Icon" for every specific programming task. If that's the case, can someone tell me where the VI "Make Valves Actuate Automatically With Incoming Sample And Check The Solution Temperature Before Running The Cleaning Cycle And Apply More Heat If It's Not Hot Enough With PID Control Unless The Omron Controller Is Not Set To PID" is located?

What irks me the most is, it seems the people who have NO exposure to LabVIEW are the people that have the strongest opinions about it. Sure, I know they are defending their platform. And I know it's my job to defend LabVIEW when they bring up these comments. But I'm tired. So... tired.

Oh, and back to my question, Do labVIEW programmers get any RESPECT where YOU work? If they do, let's do lunch. I work for peanuts.

Message Edited by Broken Arrow on 06-24-2005 02:33 PM

[tbob]

My advice to you: either ignore their comments or find another place to work. Labview is a big thing where I work, everybody uses it. We get lots of respect. It was that way at a couple of other jobs I had. I believe that these other programmers are either scared that labview is better, or that they just don't want to take the time to learn something new. This is why they make negative comments about something they know absolutely nothing about. I once knew a VB programmer who proclaimed that Labview was bad. He was an expert at VB and didn't want to learn anything else because then he would have to become a beginner again. It's human defense mechanism at its worst. If someone told me, "So, you have to draw some pictures?", I would simply answer "Yes, its more fun than writing a novel." Just ignore these jerks or join them and make fun of whatever they say. Sooner or later they will get tired of making these comments. If you do good Labview work, they may even become curious and want to learn more. That is really the key, show them up with brilliant programming.

[chilly_charly]

Hum...
I'm old enough to have experienced the good old times where "professionnal" informaticians were absolutely sure that the mouse was just a toy and graphic interface something clearly useless. DOS and keyboard where soooo efficient !
We are living again and again the same story. Life is crual to those that don't adapt. They disappear sooner or later. The sooner the better ?

[Timothy_Wright]

I mostly get respect for my experience with LabVIEW where I work. But I experienced the same problem last night, "LabVIEW is just hieroglyphics" and "Where is the actual code (text) for you to debug?" It's aggravating but luckily my management backs me up.

[Conseils]

Respect will derive from the quality and reliability of the work you produce, not the systems you use to produce them!
The same is true for them of course.

The people I most respect at work are those who are well grounded in their area of expertise, systematic and methodical in their approach, grow their skill base, flexible in their solutions, document well and organise religiously.

They almost always seem to be the most softly spoken in meetings, listening more than speaking and the most successful wherever they choose to exercise their talents.


Selection of a particular system for your solutions may considerably aide you in producing higher quality and higher reliability solutions in a more timely fashion, that are also lower cost over the life cycle of the solution!

In considering the issue that you raise; remember that software solutions, which is actually what you are about, relate to basic constructs such as: -
A black box approach using: -
Sequences
Selections
Iterations
......

These should be based on a requirements analysis document and synthesised into a software specification document using a standard methodology.... I bet they have never seen either and probably couldn't manage some Axiomatic Set Theory....

I would suggest that a strongly typed development methodology such as that encouraged by Labview, results in more reliable solutions more frequently than weakly typed approaches such as C. (Ask them about memory pointer management, type casting issues, memory de allocation and buffer overruns.... ohm yes and of course DLL hell..... that will keep em quiet) 🙂

Do I consider my self a Labview programmer?
Not so much as I consider myself a solutions architect -
That is, I will use the most appropriate tool for the problem from an armoury of skills, Labview just happens to be one of my favourites.


Well, it doesn't matter what you use to arrive at the solution, it's the quality of the solution that counts!

Good luck wherever you choose to exercise your talents.

P.S. At the moment I constitute one of the majority of Labview users.... I am the only one at our location.
I don't know how much respect I have; but I do enjoy what I do and those I choose to do it with.
As I anticipate doing it for a long time yet, I look forward to many more years enjoying myself thoroughly!

Message Edited by Conseils on 06-24-2005 10:31 PM

[Broken_Arrow]

THANK YOU to all that replied, I'm feeling much better now. Very eloquent and professional responses to what was largely a hot-headed rant on my part. LabVIEW impresses me immensely - That's all that counts!

[Todd_SD]

Labview programmers do get respect at my workplace, but there are still some interesting comments from others. For example, I work in the software department where we design embedded systems. So these are all brilliant C++ designers. Just a couple days ago I was explaining a program I am writing at home and the issues that I am running into. We are able to discuss these issues because many concepts are the same (loops, timing, synchronization, etc.) When I showed him the code he said, "you only draw pictures and connect them together!" He thought maybe I had some resource issues and mentioned things about about deallocating memory and clearing buffers and such, but I told him that in general, Labview takes care of this for me. I get to focus more on actual programming and let Labview deal with most resource issues. Now he says Labview is, "Programming for cheaters" because it's too easy to develop applications compared to C++. Maybe that should be a marketing slogan.

"Labview: Programming for cheaters" or
"Labview: We make it so easy"

[pacific]

I am a student and so I dont really qualify to comment on this. But I am very fond of LabVIEW and so I must share....I have been trying to convince students/profs to use LabVIEW for our research projects. But like most expereinced C/C++ programmers they argue that since they are used to actually seeing what happens (like memory allocation, comunication with devices etc.) they are not comfortable with "pictures/symbols" doing all that. But some wise man said.."Its important to work hard, but more important to work SMART!!"

[ian_fung]

Yes, the answer is 🙂

Very much LabVIEW programmers are getting high respect, at least at my working place.
Not to mention about many other capabilities that LabVIEW has to offer 🙂

Ask your colleague(s) who has never experienced LabVIEW or having strong opinions against LabVIEW, that how long do they take to draw a fancy button? Challenge them!

Life will be so boring if there are only the words "Gentlemen" and "Ladies" stick to the restroom doors,
and symbolic road signs make our driving more interesting!

Why just text?

[MK.K]

Since am a student and just started with labview,I would like to share some of my experiences..although am not that much experienced to comment on this issue but am seeing everyday in my workplace the respect given to the Labview programmers.itz really great..

Winners dont do different things.They do things differently..