LabVIEW
Pong template
Code looks pretty clean, but there are a few things that could be simplified.
- You don't need the timeout event if you would place a timeout on the dequeue and execute the ball case when it times out.
- It is sufficient to enqueue the key press only if it is one of the four useful values. You can put the enqueue into a case structure with an empty case as default and the four numbers in the other case.
- In the consumer loop, you can combine all paddle events into one. They are all identical! Wire the "timed out?" to the case structure and make one case ball and the other paddle.
- Depending on how you want the user to interact, also add a "key repeat" to the "key down" event.
- "Main" is not a good name for a VI. Too generic.
- Organize the project so you only have the toplevel VI visible. Create virtual folders for the subVIs and another one for the typedefs/controls. (at least!)
- You probably need to work on implementing more stable update timing. Your loop rate increases when buttons are pressed because they break the timeout. Maybe the ball should be handled in an independent loop. Currently, your ball does not update during an iteration where the paddle is moved.
- Your speed for x and y are independent, meaning it covers more distance per update moving diagonally. You are also only quantized to 6 directions. Maybe you want to carry the ball position as a complex number and increment by adding a complex value with fixed r and variable angle to have an unlimited number of directions.
- You don't need to wire the error and queue to the left edge of the consumer loop.
- You can eliminate the channel if you would stop the consumer on queue error (wire the error to the termination condition). This way the consumer loop will stop automatically when the producer has completed and the queue terminated. (note that in more complicated scenarios this might not be appropriate).
- You probably want to keep all states (ball and paddle positions, etc) in an action engine and have a single subVI that creates the image based on it. You currently create different images depending on what got updated last.
- It is sufficient to draw the new paddle and ball positions. Set the picture to "erase first".
I am sure there are more things to add. Maybe others want to chime in. 😉
OK, I made a quick demo during Sunday breakfast demonstrating the action engine idea. Note that the board updates at regular intervals. No need for queues, channels and all that.
Just to give you some general ideas. Most of the ball logic is still missing.
