Hi all,
I've been trying to get my head around the actor framework and am beginning to see the light at the end of that tunnel- no need for sunglasses just yet, as I have still some questions remaining:
1. Passing Data:
So far I have had a look around the evaporative cooler template and the actor template, as well as worked through the LabVIEW Actor Framework Basics by labvolution. Those examples are pretty clear to me now. What I don't understand however is how you are supposed to pass "real" data. Those examples only use references and then update using the "value" property. This can't be very quick, but probably is still enough for user interface applications. But what happens if I have one actor that generates data by e.g. reading from a card and I, say, want to decouple that process from saving away the data into a file. How would I pass large amounts of data between actors efficiently.
2. Using the Actor Framework with RT:
In the presentations on the AF I saw, they always mentioned that it was "completely RT capable". While this might well be true for the RT System itself, again I wonder how to pass data from an RT actor to a Windows actor. Again, suppose I want to generate data on a cRIO and save that data away on the Host PC. Would I have to establish some mode of communication between the targets myself by network streams or similar? This sort of defies the encapsulation of the AF in my opinion...
3. Defining actors:
What troubles me most, though, is the definition of the actors. How do you know what is an actor in your system? Do you define every card as an actor? Do you define every device as an actor and bundle all the I/Os within? Is there an easy way of knowing how to define the actors?
4. Debugging:
While working with the examples I found that debugging can be pretty hard. I've had several cases of "SubVI not executable" that point through several other VIs which finally call something dyynamically and from there you find out that one of your VIs is broken. Is there an easier tool to find out what's wrong? I know there are add-ons for LabVIEW that are designed to enable debugging the Actor Framework, but those wouldn't be available in a CLA exam, where you get only a basic installation of LabVIEW.
5. Root and Nested Actors:
Finally, I wonder what root and nested actor means. So far my understanding is that root actor is the parent actor you launch in the launch VI and nested actors are all the child actors that serve the parent actor and are, most of the times, launched from the parent actor- actor core. Is that correct? Is there a better definition of it?
Any help on this topic is greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to the discussion and am interested if you use the Actor Framework frequently or if you have abandonned it again after using it.
Cheers,
Pete
