That's weird... the vi doesn't LOOK broken!?!?

[tst]

I won't dispute that the release dates are most likely enforced (programmers are never ready), and I didn't use 8.2 (or 8.2.1 or 8.5, for that matter), so I'm not the proper person to comment about the readiness of LVOOP in 8.2.

However, I did try to follow the discussions about LVOOP and my *impression* was that LVOOP in 8.2 had several big bugs, a lot of edit time issues and had problems with support in the RTE. I wouldn't call that "not ready".

Granted, I also ship all my applications as deployed executables and I wouldn't want to find that a feature my application relies on will not work in an executable, but I would be very careful with a new feature anyway, since I know there are features which only work in the IDE.

In any case, if NI hadn't shipped 8.0 and 8.2, it probably would not have been ready in 8.2.1. Eventually, you release your product and find that there are bugs that you didn't catch either in your design and testing or in your betas (for example, that "double-click the icon" the bug). You can't guarantee that a bug will be caught in a beta, especially if it is in a new and complicated feature which people don't necessarily have time to learn and use.

If you have any more criticism, I suggest you post it here.

[billings11]

I'd rather post on NI's own site.  I'm NI's customer.

No I've done it, LVOOP wasn't ready until 8.2.1.  And they could have easily found most of those bugs by just creating a medium sized LVOOP project and building it into an exe and installation.  It didn't take outside developers to find them, most of them are obvious if you try to build a real project in LVOOP.

Message Edited by billings11 on 09-19-2007 02:49 PM

[tst]

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@billings11 wrote:

I'd rather post on NI's own site.  I'm NI's customer.

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Fair enough, although I know I would follow LAVA for that since that's where most serious users of LVOOP post and where you have the designer of LVOOP available to answer. It's a simple matter of practicality.

[MichaelAivaliotis]

You can build applications with LVOOP in 8.2 and 8.5. I've done it. Are you stating that you can't build your application at all?

To comment on the "not ready for release" statement. I also criticize NI for lack of features or buginess of features, however to claim that NI doesn't test their software before release or in some way does a sloppy job of validation is pretty harsh and unfounded. The build issue with LVOOP is not a good thing but there IS a workaround.

The fact of life is that software is never %100 bug free. There are always bugs that were not found because of a gap in the process. Now that it's reported, I'm sure a test will be written to detect it for the next round of builds. I'm curious, in YOUR development, build and release process, do you do automated Unit testing? Do you put every single VI you write through a test framework to see if the VI passes before it's build into your application which is delivered to your customer? How do you guarantee your code to be %100 bug free?

[billings11]

Fine nevermind LVOOP is great and there are no bugs at all and I haven't spent more time debugging than developing at all.

[tst]

We're not saying that there are no bugs, just that your description of NI's process is false.

I've had the chance to use the PDA module in its first versions. That was definitely a half baked product, but it was ready - you could produce applications. You just had to take into consideration that there are a lot of bugs which you will need to work around, even if you paid good money for it, and work that into your development schedule. That's sometimes the price of using a first release.

I haven't had a chance to use the last couple of versions of the PDA module, but I understand that there were improvements and a lot of them probably came about because customers said "this is what we want and need".

Anyway, I know that if I had the R&D guy ask for feedback and be available for questioning, I would go and talk to him instead of going through the AEs (which is not to say that gmart is an AE) or just venting.

Ultimately, you have two productive options -

1. Drop LVOOP and\or LabVIEW. I know I wouldn't want to.
2. Try to make the best of the situation by getting proper answers. That's what going to LAVA will get you.

[billings11]

I've already made the best of the situation.  Its not a matter of getting answers from LAVA.

Probably NI did test building exe's with LVOOP and decided to release knowing workarounds would be required.  Either that or they never tested building an exe with LVOOP.  But it has to be one or the other right?

[billings11]

You know what it doesn't matter.  Labview is what it is.  I do like LVOOP.  Its a great feature.  I just wish they had tested it more.  I knew using it was a risk going in because it was so new, but I was excited about it and wanted to try it.  These luckily aren't application-killing bugs.  They are just daily annoyance bugs.  Sometimes that annoyance gets the best of me.

Message Edited by billings11 on 09-20-2007 03:17 PM

[tst]

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@billings11 wrote:

Probably NI did test building exe's with LVOOP and decided to release knowing workarounds would be required.  Either that or they never tested building an exe with LVOOP.  But it has to be one or the other right?

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I would guess it was the first, but the easiest way to get a qualified answer would be to ask AQ (or gmart, since if memory serves he\she worked on the app builder and would probably know).

[MichaelAivaliotis]

Having worked with LVOOP in 8.2 and now in 8.5 I can say that many bugs have been fixed in 8.5. It's much more stable.