Stream of consciousness alert.
My sense is that LabVIEW is not the BEST.
The best is probably an all-hardware solution. Very difficult to build, harder to debug, harder still to modify.
Introduce software, the next best is probably coded in machine language. Probably harder than all-hardware.
Next best is to use a low-level language such as C with custom routines optimized for your particular problem. Hard, but doable and not user-friendly.
Move to a higher level language such as C++, better UI, slightly worse performance.
Move to LabVIEW/Measurement Studio. Slightly worse overhead, great UI, relatively easy to modify and debug. Probably the only one that works on a reasonable budget/timeline.
99+% of applications would probably not need the performance (at least initially) beyond what LV can deliver. Even if you did, you'd be crazy not to start with the most straightforward.
My personal bias is towards Measurement Studio. I feel that it gives me the ability to get my hands dirty when necessary but maintain a very clean UI. With LV I feel that there is some overhead when interfacing with external code. If I already knew LV would I learn/buy Measurement Studio just for this application, almost certainly not.
Don't let perfection be the enemy of the very, very good. I say go with LV.
End stream of consciousness.
