©2001 CRC Press LLC
Preface and Acknowledgments
As the power of the standard personal computer has steadily evolved, so have the
capabilities of LabVIEW. LabVIEW has simplified the working lives of thousands
of scientists, engineers, and technicians, and has increased their productivity. Auto-
mation has reduced the costs and increased the manufacturing outputs of factories
around the world. Cycle times for product development have been shortened and
the quality of many products has steadily improved. LabVIEW does not get credit
for all of these improvements, but has without question played a valuable role in
accomplishing these goals in many organizations.
In our earlier experiences with LabVIEW, we found that adequate coverage of
key topics was lacking. Subjects that are useful to users without a formal background
in computer science, such as approaches to software development, exception han-
dling, and state machines, were very difficult to find. In addition, newer areas such
as multithreading and ActiveX are even harder to locate, and sometimes documen-
tation is nonexistent. Part of our intent in this book is to cover these topics that are
difficult to find in other books on LabVIEW.
The chapters in this book are written in a manner that will allow readers to study
the topic of interest without having to read the contents in sequential order. Users
of LabVIEW with varying levels of expertise will find this book beneficial.
Proficiency with a programming language requires an understanding of the
language constructs and the tools needed to produce and debug code. The first two
chapters provide an overview of LabVIEW’s Integrated Development Environment,
programming constructs, and main features. These chapters are meant to supplement
LabVIEW’s documentation, and provide good background information for program-
mers new to the language.
Effective programmers have an understanding of programming techniques that
are applicable to a large number of programming problems. Programming tools such
as state machines that simplify logic of handling various occurrences, and the use
of instrument drivers are two such programming tools. Exception handling is left
out of more applications than we want to discuss (including some of our own), but
we have included a chapter specifically on exception handling in LabVIEW.
Advanced programmers understand the operation of the language they are work-
ing with and how it interacts with the system. We present a chapter on multithread-
ing’s impact on LabVIEW. Version 5.0 was LabVIEW’s debut into the world of
multithreaded-capable programming languages. A number of the issues that occur
with multithreading programming were abstracted from the programmer, but a
working knowledge of mutithreaded interactions is needed.
Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is commonly employed in languages such
as C++ and Java. LabVIEW programmers can realize some of the benefits to such
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