Why use LabVIEW? [closed]

Question

I am learning to use LabVIEW as part of my honours project, and was wondering what benefits the graphical programming language has over a textual one?

Answer 1

To me, the benefit of LabVIEW is not in graphical vs. textual.

It's dataflow vs. imperative.

Dataflow programming lends itself to concurrency, because your execution is modeled as black boxes which execute when their inputs are valid, whose inputs / outputs are wired together. This as opposed to implicit state with a list of instructions on how to modify it. (Loosely paraphrasing 'kipedia, the article linked above is better.)

Each black box can run on a separate core/processor/node, which gives you, effectively, free concurrency if you organize your program the dataflow way.

Unfortunately (and this is a crippling downside to dataflow programming in general) the best way to visualize and edit dataflow programs is graphical, not textual. This makes using tools such as revision control and code generators very difficult.

The question is: Do the pros of dataflow outweigh the cons, for you and your project?

Answer 2

One of the main advantages to graphical programming with LabVIEW is that the source code is very similar to circuit diagrams, so it's a very easy language for electrical/electronics engineers to pick up. This is one of the reasons that LabVIEW has become so popular in the data acquisition and automation fields, where EEs are plentiful.

Another advantage that I found was raw speed of development. You assemble your GUIs from a palette of available front panel controls, very similar to how you do it in Visual Studio. The source code is written in a similar manner, with many pre-defined components that you can drop in from menus and wire together.

A third advantage is compatibility with hardware. National Instruments main business is data acquisition hardware, and they go to great lengths to make sure all of their products can communicate with LabVIEW software straight out of the box. Many other hardware vendors in the data acquisition and automation control industry are doing the same.