c# or java course?

[BrianInTheForest]

I was thinking of taking a course C# or Java at the local community college to enhance my LabVIEW skills.

Both are oject oriented which would help with LabVIEW 8.20, but C# deals a lot with .NET. 

Any suggestions on which would benefit me the most?

Thanks,

Brian

[ohiofudu]

Hi Brian,

Why not think only G.........,only G .......Now with LV 8.20 we can use G to solve most problems that java and C# can solve. We want you to use only LabVIEW as a proven Regular
wire worker


ohiofudu
CLAD

[Doug M]

Brian,

Both languages are useful and relatively similar in their level of abstraction.  If it were me I would choose C# as I see learning .NET as a bonus.

[BrianInTheForest]

Thanks Doug for the advice. 

Brian

[MJBrehm]

I came from 1 year of C++ and about 3 years of java experience before I played with labview...

While it helped with basic concepts of loops and such, the only benefit I got out of it, was the ability to compare Labview to java... which I was more familiar with java....

So in essence, beside basic concepts, I don't see a real advantage to that unless you would just like to learn other languages for yourself.

In my humble opinion of course.


EDIT: of course knowing those languages couldv'e helped me in ways I didn't really relize too.

Message Edited by MJBrehm on 08-22-2006 10:20 AM

[Doug M]

MJBrehm,

I think what Brian is referring to is that in LabVIEW 8.20 LabVIEW added native Object Oriented capabilities. See the following: LabVIEW Object-Oriented Programming: The Decisions Behind the Design, I think that a LabVIEW programmer could understand and use many of the LabVIEW related Object Oriented features by reading the Help topic LabVIEW Object Oriented Programming in the LabVIEW Help, but that the full extent of what Object Oriented programming is may be understood in a greater context by learning a text based OOP language.  I don't know if a single course would provide this view, but I still think its worthwhile.

[Wiebe@CARYA]

Any course in another language will increase your insight, and therefore makes you a better LabVIEW programmer.


In the worse case, when you learn nothing and hate the language, it will help you appreciate LabVIEW even more! (I had this with a HPV course once).


If you want to learn OOP basics, the java seems better to me. I'm no expert, but I think it's a bit easier (and it's not from M$). A book general on OOP or OO architecture might be useful too (like the patterns from Gang of four). Those books often use c++, but only to illustrate. If you don't know c++, you'll still get the idea most of the times.


It's difficult to map some OOP ideas to LabVIEW. Some OOP problems don't even exist in LabVIEW. For example, a lot of OOP patterns (abstract interface, pimpl pattern) are used to separate dependencies of files. This is useful to reduce compile times (but it has other purposes). Never had long compile times with LabVIEW though!


Also note that some OOP mechanisms (like multiple inheritance, pure virtual functions and function overwriting) will not be implemented in LabVIEW. At least not in the first releases.


Regards,


Wiebe.




"brianlachlan" <x@no.email> wrote in message news:1156194608199-406760@exchange.ni.com...
I was thinking of taking a course C# or Java&nbsp;at the local community college to enhance my LabVIEW skills.
&nbsp;
Both are oject oriented which would help with LabVIEW 8.20, but C# deals a lot with .NET.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Any suggestions on which would benefit me the most?
&nbsp;
Thanks,
Brian

[falkpl]

I have programmed in both languages but not extensivly,but have programmed in labview for 8+ years.  C# will integrate much easier with labview due to its .net core.  If you are looking to supplement your labview skills I would suggest c#.net over java.  java probably has a much larger user base however. 

Paul

[MJBrehm]

Doug,

Just read about the OOP integration into Labview today.... Still kinda confused as to the intent of such, as I thought Labview inadvertently had OOP characteristics already...

Was excited to see your link but just as quickly dissapointed that I received this error::

Document is not available

The contents of this document are currently being reviewed.


I would like to know the decisions behind this OOP craze, because so far from what I can tell in the demonstration flash animation, it looks like just alot of extra "razzle dazzle" added for what is an unobvious gain. Im sure its significance really starts to shine when the scope increases ( as in other OOP apps ). I will remain skeptical as of right now to the benefits over what labview already offered. 

[Underflow]

Hey Brian,

Faced with a similar decision, I went with C# (though I'm just teaching myself).  The language itself seems remarkably rationally designed.  While I'm still at the stage of fighting with the Visual Studio development environment, I've seen some things there that I wouldn't mind seeing in LV's dev environment... actually, it's a pretty long list of features I'd love to see 🙂

If you want a preview, the free Express version of C# is available at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/download/

Joe Z. (not an MS employee, honest!)