How to become a bad labview developer - According to ChatGPT

[Tmajeed367]

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💀 How to Become Bad at LabVIEW

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1. Use Only Flat Sequence Structures

Because nothing says "professional" like a 3-screen-wide sequence with 50 frames and no comments.

• Completely ignore state machines, events, or QMH.

• Use "Frame 32" to control logic instead of meaningful state names.

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2. Spaghetti Wires Everywhere

Why route wires cleanly when you can just cross them 100 times?

• Don’t label wires.

• Cross wires over front panel terminals and structures.

• Use random colors for signal wires to make it "artistic".

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3. Never Use Typedefs

Just create 17 copies of that enum and update them individually.

• Bonus points for different ordering of the same enum in different VIs.

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4. Global Variables for EVERYTHING

Who needs data flow when you can have data chaos?

• Use global variables to pass data between states, loops, even parallel VIs.

• Watch your code randomly break when race conditions occur!

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5. Write One Giant VI

1000x1000 pixels. One VI. One love.

• Don’t modularize.

• Put all logic in one huge block diagram.

• Nest structures 10 levels deep.

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6. No Error Handling

Just wire errors into a constant and move on. YOLO.

• Errors are suggestions, right?

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7. Poll Everything in a Tight Loop

Efficiency? Never heard of it.

• Check every button and sensor every millisecond, in a greedy polling loop.

• Who needs event structures or timing?

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8. Don't Use Documentation

Comments are for the weak.

• Use cryptic abbreviations like xxRTCB_Ctrl.vim with no explanation.

• Bonus: Delete all front panel labels and captions.

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9. Ignore LabVIEW Style Guides

Standards stifle creativity!

• Use different styles in every VI.

• Mix camelCase, snake_case, and CAPSLOCK.

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10. Save Everything on Desktop, No Version Control

If you lose your code, that’s fate.

• No Git, no SCC, no backups. Overwrite previous versions with "final2.vi", "reallyFinal.vi", "NEWfinal(3).vi".

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11. Hardcode Everything

Make sure every path, value, and constant is typed manually. Preferably in multiple places.

• Forget INI files or config clusters.

• Want to change the baud rate? Go find it buried in 12 different places.

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12. Ignore User Events, Producer-Consumer, or Queued Message Handlers

Use one loop. One big loop. Forever.

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🎯 Result:

Your boss cries. Your co-workers quit. LabVIEW crashes. NI sends a representative to ask what you've done. 🤣

[paul_a_cardinale]

Other possible result: The hacker gets the code limping along; and the boss, never looking under the hood, thinks it's a job well done.

[RTSLVU]

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@paul_a_cardinale wrote:

Other possible result: The hacker gets the code limping along; and the boss, never looking under the hood, thinks it's a job well done.

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Sad to say this is what happens most often. Early in my career I was handed some LabVIEW code that was heralded as one of R&D's greatest achievements and told to modify it for the V&V lab. The code was one big loop (OBL) full of locals and flat sequences. To read it you had to follow the Error Cluster squiggling around the block diagram like following a treasure map. (facepalm)

I put my foot down and flat out refused. Then wrote a better more modular program that fit our lab's needs from scratch in less time that I estimated it would have taken to fix that code. 

[ThomasHenkel]

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@RTSLVU wrote:
To read it you had to follow the Error Cluster squiggling around the block diagram like following a treasure map. (facepalm)

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At least he had an error line, you can give him that 😄

[Yamaeda]

Spot on! Except the singular VI should be at least 10k x 10k!

[rolfk]

ChatGPT is very good in collecting the obvious from the internet, when it doesn't hallucinate eloquently and with absolute authority. 😁

[VinnyAstro]

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@RTSLVU  a écrit :

To read it you had to follow the Error Cluster squiggling around the block diagram

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That sounds awful...

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@RTSLVU  a écrit :
like following a treasure map.

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That sounds fun however. A whole different meaning to being a pirate behind a computer hehe

[wiebe@CARYA]

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@Tmajeed367 wrote:

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1. Use Only Flat Sequence Structures

Because nothing says "professional" like a 3-screen-wide sequence with 50 frames and no comments.

• Completely ignore state machines, events, or QMH.

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I ignore 2 out of 3 of those 😁.

See the eXtreme Go Horse Methodology (XGH) for general programming practices.

[billko]

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@rolfk wrote:

ChatGPT is very good in collecting the obvious from the internet, when it doesn't hallucinate eloquently and with absolute authority. 😁

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But if it so obvious, why do you run into those things so often?  😄

[rolfk]

Well, it was maybe a bit short: there are people who know enough about a subject to be dangerous but not enough to know they are dangerous. For those this list could be not so obvious but they are also not likely to go and ask ChatGPT about this.😁

But each of these points has been listed multiple times on this forum, LavaG, Info-LabVIEW and others in the last 30 years or so. 😎