Sad Conversations

[swatts]

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry I've been quiet, I have been VERY busy. One downside of large contracts is that they need a lot of support (which is only a downside if you don't like supporting people I guess).

Anyways, last week on consecutive days people reached out to me and essentially asked the same question....

"Is it worth continuing with LabVIEW in my career?", you could put this down as fall-out from NXG being nixed, but these people were current LabVIEW users and educators and have been to a high level for many years.

My initial thoughts are that this is more to do with NI than it has to do with LabVIEW. I think their change in course from doing EVERYTHING for the community to being less and less visible to their "smaller" accounts/users has left people a bit bereft. I guess the only solution that we have power over is to plug the gaps with some community organisation. <-- count me out of this one, I've done enough!

As to LabVIEW and careers I say the following...

Your career will probably be judged on how many things you build, how well you build them and how successfully the end user uses them. Notice LabVIEW is not mentioned here... A builder is not defined by their tools, too many in the software industry forget this.

So if you are currently most productive in LabVIEW, I would say use LabVIEW and be happy.

The next question I get is "everyone is using Python, should I learn Python", my response to these types of statements is that I personally would keep away from learning something that "everyone" is learning. I'm not arrogant enough to think I can compete with these particular masses. Also is the software they're producing the type of software I'm interested in. For me software is fun when it interacts with some sort of machine. I know Python can do this, but is it something its better than LabVIEW at?

Also for me returning to a text-based language seems retrograde.

This doesn't mean I'm against learning, currently I'm enthused about learning more about networks, Xojo and Linux. If I had time I would be learning how to program PLCs. These are all complimentary to my current skill-set, notice I'm not replacing, I'm adding.

Hope you all are keeping healthy, we're nearly at the end of the nightmare!

Lots of Love