LabVIEW: Advanced Programming Techniques

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Summary: An excellent book for advanced LabVIEW users
Review: An excellent book for LabVIEW program designers and programmers! Especially for LabVIEW users with several years experience and try to learn more new software techniques. The authors introduced many concepts and techniques in C/C++ such as ActiveX, COM, DCOM etc. The OOA, OOD and design pattern are also combined with LabVIEW programming. There are many useful examples in the book. I recommend this book to all LabVIEW users.

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Summary: Good Book if You're Beyond Basics
Review: Definitely read this book. It offers step by step instructions for basic functionality and also descriptive graphics which enhance the comprehension. It is by far the most far-reaching and intelligent book I have read about this tool.

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Summary: When you need to know about Labview...
Review: Definitely read this book. It offers step by step instructions for basic functionality and also descriptive graphics which enhance the comprehension. It is by far the most far-reaching and intelligent book I have read about this tool.

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Summary: good starting point for google
Review: First off, about first 60 pages are wasted with a very introductory description of the various Labview palettes. So you'd think it's a newbie friendly book... Forget it ..Later on, it presents interesting tricks but you got to be really advanced yourself to "get it". Not quite the "step by step" other referals praise so much. But I admit, the tricks are neat, and if you're beyond the basics and good enough to think about architecting large projects, I would highly recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book if You're Beyond Basics
Review: I've been programming for about two years. Most of my training in Labview is by trial-and-error and reading the examples that came with Labview. I've written over 3 dozen programs for my present employer.

As for books, I have many of them. This book in particular, is aimed to the advanced user. Don't expect to learn how to write programs with this book. For a graphical programming language, this book has very little graphics or pictures.

What you can expect is to hone your applications so that they are easier for the end user, easier to maintain and separates 'working' VIs from 'expert' VI. Many little tricks in this book (such as setting preferences, using state machines, and yes, Active X) will make your applications run faster with less overhead.

If you're looking for a book to show you more programming techniques, with actual examples, I'd opt for Essick's "Advanced LabVIEW Labs" (an intermediate book) or Johnson's "LabVIEW Graphical Programming" (more advanced). If you're looking for ways to separate yourself from programmers that make 'working' VIs, then this book by Bitter et al. is for you.

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Summary: Great info on several topics
Review: This is an excellent intro into some of the advanced features of LV. It covers basic features, state machines (one of the best chapters), application structure, drivers, exception handling, multithreading, OOP, and unfortunately Active X (chpaters to skip). The info is excellent, and I think it is well worth the cost and time to read. It also comes with a great CD.

The only bad part is more than 20% of the book is devited to Active X. This is a huge kick in the pants to platform independence. While I am working on NT (by force, not by choice) I try to avoid any technonogy that supports ... you know, the M word.