The LabVIEW Style Book (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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Drawing on the experiences of a world-class LabVIEW development organization, The LabVIEW Style Book is the definitive guide to best practices in LabVIEW development.

Leading LabVIEW development manager Peter A. Blume presents practical guidelines or “rules” for optimizing every facet of your applications: ease of use, efficiency, readability, simplicity, performance, maintainability, and robustness. Blume explains each style rule thoroughly, presenting realistic examples and illustrations. He even presents “nonconforming” examples that show what not to do–and why not.

 

Coverage includes

• Significance of style: How good style improves quality and actually saves time over the full project life cycle
• Before you code: Configuring your LabVIEW environment, and organizing your files on disk and in the LabVIEW project
• LabVIEW project specifications: A specialized standard for specifying LabVIEW application requirements
• Efficient VI layout and development: front panel, block diagram, icons, and connectors
• Data structures: Choosing data types, efficient use of arrays and clusters, and special considerations with nested data structures
• Error handling strategies: Trapping and reporting errors for robust and reliable applications
• Design patterns: Standard VI architectures and application frameworks that promote good style
• Documentation: Essential rules for source code documentation and streamlining the process
• Code reviews: Enforcing a style convention using a checklist, the LabVIEW VI Analyzer Toolkit, and peer reviews
• Appendixes: Convenient glossary and style rules summary

 

This book will be indispensable to anyone who wants to develop or maintain quality LabVIEW applications: developers, managers, and end users alike. Additionally, it will also be valuable to those preparing for NI’s Certified LabVIEW Developer or Certified LabVIEW Architect exams, which contain significant content on development style.

 

Foreword by Darren Nattinger 

Preface 

Acknowledgments 

About the Author 

 

Chapter 1          The Significance of Style 

Chapter 2          Prepare for Good Style 

Chapter 3          Front Panel Style 

Chapter 4          Block Diagram 

Chapter 5          Icon and Connector 

Chapter 6          Data Structures 

Chapter 7          Error Handling 

Chapter 8          Design Patterns 

Chapter 9          Documentation 

Chapter 10        Code Reviews

Appendix A       Glossary 

Appendix B       Style Rules Summary 

Index 

 

 

About the Author

Peter Blume is the founder and president of Bloomy Controls, Inc., a National Instruments Select Integration Partner that specializes in LabVIEW-based systems development. Since LabVIEW Version 2.5, Blume and his staff of engineers have solved more than a thousand industrial applications for customers throughout the northeastern United States. To promote consistent quality among multiple developers in multiple offices, Blume established and evolved the company’s LabVIEW development practices.

 

Blume has written and presented multiple LabVIEW style-related presentations, including Bloomy Controls’ Professional LabVIEW Development Guidelines at NIWeek 2002 and Five Techniques for Better LabVIEW Code at NIWeek 2003. He also has published technical articles in various trade publications, including Test & Measurement World, Evaluation Engineering, Electronic Design, and Desktop Engineering.

 

Blume holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut. He is a National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Developer and Certified Professional Instructor. The company has offices in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. For more information, visit www.bloomy.com.

Readers who want to contact Blume regarding style-related suggestions, questions, or comments may do so at the following email address: [e-mail] . Readers interested in contracting Bloomy Controls for a LabVIEW development project should call us directly or contact us through our website at www.bloomy.com/quote.

 

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1 edition (March 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131458353
• ISBN-13: 978-0131458352
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,177 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good - needs editing, April 7, 2008

By	reniam "reniam" (Durham, NH USA) - See all my reviews

I get the feeling the other reviews are written by the author and his friends. Some are just a little too glowing.

This book is good but, needs editing because it is very long winded; using twice as many words than necessary to get the point across (the author is always stressing efficiency). Many of the "rules" are subjective and should be called suggestions. For example, the author has a rule disabling "Show dots at wire junctions". I like the dots. The VI's are not included with the book. Some are available from the authors company site but, only after registration.

I recommend the book but, be prepared to spend the time required for reading.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars many recommendations apply to any GUI design, March 23, 2007

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Labview has grown so complex and powerful that the necessity has arisen for a book like this. Inevitable, I suppose.

A lot of the recommedations by Blume are applicable to any GUI designer. Like minimising the text in labels. Few users want to or will read large paragraphs or long sentences pasted into labels. These act instead to clutter up the real estate of the display, and often will confuse the new user or irritate the experienced user, who does not need such a laborious elaboration.

Another tip is to avoid string controls unless really required. The problem here is that the user then has many ways to enter a badly formatted string. Perhaps it should be an integer. But she sticks a letter or decimal point in it. Opps! You'd better then have logic to check for this. But it is even better to prevent such errors from occurring. In general, you should make the input widgets as robust as possible against faulty user input.

Yet another general tip is to have data output in XML format. These days, it makes it much easier for someone else to come along and write code to read in your output, for other applications. By writing in XML, you take advantage of powerful parsers that are freely available.

Of course, many tips are specific to Labview. Try to have data flowing mostly in one direction in a circuit diagram. And not left to right, right to left, up and down. More generally, whenever you have wires, minimise the number of bends. Makes the overall picture much clearer for a user to grasp.

All of which makes this book well worth it for a Labview designer. Granted, there is a lot here, and it is definitely not a trivial read. But even just taking in some chapters has the prospect of quickly improving your circuit designs.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just excellent., December 8, 2008

By	C. Bailey "cbailey139" (Maryland United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm reading this now and learning plenty as I do. It is very thoughtful and insightful. This book is defining, for me, the step up from being able to use LabVIEW to appreciating good programming style and aspiring to it. This book is much more about why some ways of doing things are better than others, much more about ways to think of LabVIEW, and not just another reference explaining how to use each of LV's features.