Questions to NI

[F._Schubert]

Going back to the main issue, I consider Norberts point very important to me. If I am to deploy a new ATE to a customer, I have someone setting up the PC with all the drivers/software I might need and I don't want to detail if I'm using GPIB or DAQ or whatever. And this person might be even intelligent-lazy to automate the process of installing every bit of software that's on the list for any of our ATE's.

As far as I know LV now comes as a DVD with about every toolkit available, you just miss the installation keys. And most of us (and we are power users!) are pleased that we don't need to stay near the PC to swap CDs but have the installation running and do our other buissines's.

Felix

[muks]

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Norbert B wrote:

There are people with blue names who are not employed at NI. This is a lithium thing where an email starting with @ni will result in a blue name plate. But it's true for most blue names

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This seems to be true...  

 Andrey. 

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I never knew this was possible.

 

[parthabe]

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Andréy Dmitriév wrote:

This seems to be true...  😉 

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Hi Andrey,

Can you post here or show the email ID in your profile page, you created for this?

Just curious...

[parthabe]

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Andréy Dmitriév wrote:

This seems to be true...  😉 

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Hi Andrey,

Can you post here or show the email ID in your profile page, you created for this?

Just curious...

Message Edited by parthabe on 08-28-2009 03:42 AM

[Norbert_B]

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parthabe wrote:

[...]Can you post here or show the email ID in your profile page, you created for this? [...]

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Arg, this was not the idea of the info i posted.... it is not good if everyone runs around with a blue name plate.......

I posted this because

a) it was already known to at least some attendees in this forum

b) if you encounter a .....strange question (i should rather say "very basic") from a person with a blue name plate, you don't have to assume that this is someone from NI 😉

Norbert 

[parthabe]

Yeah, Norbert! I totally agree with you.

And I m one of those that knew about this already from here & here.

[MaSta]

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Norbert B wrote: What if the VISA installer would be 40MB smaller, but would require the system to have certain components to be installed already (for instance Visual C++ Runtime  8.0).

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Ah, thanks. Finally a constructive answer

That is exactly the point. Comparing 7.0 and 8.5, I mentioned there are some things that have gone worse (amongst the ones that have become better). This is for example the requirement for a Visual C++ Runtime. Why? Why does 8.5 need a VC++ Runtime, while 7.0 did not?

Why is the VISA package now so much bigger than it was with 7.0, while it is still only about interfaces like RS232, USB, GPIB etc.? These interfaces haven't changed.

Is NI following the worldwide trend that blows up the size of softwares and wastes HDD space while not having remarkable improvements, except a shiny new interface (like Windows 7)?

I mean, the approvements in 8.5 regarding the application builder have been necessary since ages. There are basic requirements that already should have been fulfilled in older versions.

The applications we do are the same as before, but now we think we should have stayed with 7.0 rather than 8.5. There are no improvements for us using 8.5. In the contrary, applications compiled with 8.5 run much slower. In 8.5, Labview still has annoying behaviour like "finding" files from everywhere where it should stay out of. The programmer has to zip older applications that use the same resources, just to prevent LabView from finding files there. Just to mention it...

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Norbert B wrote:

If someone misses this, he has an useless installer. And he would ask, with the same right like you: Why does the installer not install anything which is required for the application?

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Let the user decide. Other software companies had the idea to run the software in an expert or simple mode. In simple mode, the app builder would include everything automatically. In expert mode, the user has to decide.

[rolfk]

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Maik S. wrote:

That is exactly the point. Comparing 7.0 and 8.5, I mentioned there are some things that have gone worse (amongst the ones that have become better). This is for example the requirement for a Visual C++ Runtime. Why? Why does 8.5 need a VC++ Runtime, while 7.0 did not?

Why is the VISA package now so much bigger than it was with 7.0, while it is still only about interfaces like RS232, USB, GPIB etc.? These interfaces haven't changed.

Is NI following the worldwide trend that blows up the size of softwares and wastes HDD space while not having remarkable improvements, except a shiny new interface (like Windows 7)?

I can not answer for NI but I would assume they have long ago moved from Visual C 6.0 to Visual C 2003 and then consequently 2008 and no I'm sure they are not using the Express Edition. 

And each Visual C version comes with a new runtime version. Yes NI could decide to stay with Visual C 6.0 and that would not require to distribute any runtime library since just about any Windows system since Windows 95 does include the runtimes that VC 6 needs. BUT! While VC 6 has been very good, it does not really support ActiveX creation to well, and .Net is simply no option. Which makes us come to the next point. They most likely also ship support for accessing the drivers from .Net too, nowadays. This is a requirement that many customers have and NI has answered that demand. This does require to use a recent VC version to create that support and it is simply not practical to request NI to use several different versions of VC for the different parts in their software. This would be a maintenance nightmare and a sure way to decrease software quality since testing such a setup is simply not practical anymore.

I mean, the approvements in 8.5 regarding the application builder have been necessary since ages. There are basic requirements that already should have been fulfilled in older versions.

Software development is and always has been an incremental process. Of course you say that feature X in software Y should have been released already years ago. But for someone else this is feature Z and so on. The alternative is to not release software until it is perfect, which is never.

The applications we do are the same as before, but now we think we should have stayed with 7.0 rather than 8.5. There are no improvements for us using 8.5. In the contrary, applications compiled with 8.5 run much slower. In 8.5, Labview still has annoying behaviour like "finding" files from everywhere where it should stay out of. The programmer has to zip older applications that use the same resources, just to prevent LabView from finding files there. Just to mention it...

Nobody forbids you to go back! Yes it is not guaranteed to work on Vista or Windows 7 because there was no way to foresee what fancy ideas Microsoft would have with those versions. But it does work with a bit of good will even on those systems.

Let the user decide. Other software companies had the idea to run the software in an expert or simple mode. In simple mode, the app builder would include everything automatically. In expert mode, the user has to decide.

I'm absolutely not convinced there is anybody outside of NI that could even remotely understand the dependencies and implications of such a configuration option. In anyway it would put an extreme burdon on any new release of NI software that would as well push out every new LabVIEW release easily for many months, in which the installers and subinstallers are build configured, tested, rebuild, retested and so on. And all those people doing that work would not work on new features for LabVIEW. And hiring more just to support that has a price tag that I'm not sure you would want to carry inany way. Would you buy such a LabVIEW distribution that supports such a fine grained selection if it would cost 2000 or 3000 bucks more?

Rolf Kalbermatter

Message Edited by rolfk on 08-28-2009 11:14 AM

[Norbert_B]

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@Maik S. wrote:

[...]Why is the VISA package now so much bigger than it was with 7.0, while it is still only about interfaces like RS232, USB, GPIB etc.? These interfaces haven't changed.[...]

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First of all, there has been changes done in NI VISA. Changes which are needed to provide proper functionality. For instance, NI VISA 4.1 was the first version officially compatible to Windows VISTA. NI VISA 4.0 introduced support for 64-bit data transfers in register-based operations. Those are either pure additions or at least modifications of existing components.

Those features have to be implemented somewhere. If NI is using Visual Studio C++ for that developement, they will need the runtime of Visual C++.

This brings me to next point i want you to consider:

If you are working with e.g. LabVIEW 6.1, that's fine. But you will not get support for it anymore (except in this forum). This is true for Microsoft's languages as well (except that you wont get much support for them here 🙂 ). And now the point: I take it that you want NI to use old versions of Visual Studio just in order not to have a need for another runtime engine? You want someone else to develope system critical code with unsupported IDEs?

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Maik S. wrote:  

[...]I mean, the approvements in 8.5 regarding the application builder have been necessary since ages. [...]There are no improvements for us using 8.5.[...] 

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Hm? I don't get the point here........nevertheless, nobody forces you to update except you have an unresolvable issue which does not occur with the current version of LV or if your boss has decided. In either case, you have to live with that.

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@Maik S. wrote:

[...]Let the user decide. Other software companies had the idea to run the software in an expert or simple mode. [...]

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There is only one problem: some people consider themselfes very often to be experts.... and if they run into issues, exactly those people tend to blame the tool instead of trying to understand what went wrong....

just my 5 cents,

Norbert