I’ve been thinking a lot lately about tooling. I’ve been getting my CI system running smoothly (ish, more on that later) as well as exploring another new language and working on open source projects on GitHub. I’ve realised that there are specific penalties that we have to face as LabVIEW Read more…
Intro Open source software projects are making huge contributions around the world. They allow communities to pool their resources and achieve progress that couldn’t be reached by individual teams in silos. While there are open source projects in LabVIEW, it feels like a resource that we aren’t great at using Read more…
We have long known that VI Analyzer is a good idea – much like unit testing – people on the other side of adoption swear by it. We’ve found a few hurdles for mainstream adoption into our process, and I suspect yours too. 1. Understanding Why The first step in Read more…
I don’t write code in the best way the first time. No-one does. Instead, if we want to get to a state of clean code (readable, maintainable etc.), we often have to put specific effort into it. Martin Fowler’s Refactoring book summarises it nicely when talking about refactoring. You need Read more…
One of the key architectural rules I learnt in LabVIEW is what I always call in my head the “single source of synchronisation” rule. I need to make two opening statements on this: Someone/Something taught me this – Huge apologies I can’t remember the source of this but thank you Read more…
The word of the year here at Wiresmith Technology is process. In areas where I have standardised processes life has got easier, less stressful and more reliable. Now I’m looking at the software processes to see where we can get the same benefits. Something that I have wanted to address Read more…
Its that time of year – the arbitrary point to review what is going on in our lives! To that end, I thought I would review my LabVIEW life here. What has worked well this year? LabVIEW CLI Probably my most exciting LabVIEW element this year has been working on Read more…
The APIs that you have to test are not always simple. As well as passing data they may involve events (with the front panel or with user events). The other day I needed to test that an event fired as part of a test case. I could see a generic Read more…
When writing applications that will be used by anyone else you will need a configuration file. In my experience, this is almost universal and the more I make configurable, the more powerful the software becomes and the less small changes I have to make for my customers. Where do we Read more…
What do problems like WannaCry mean for us? The more I learn about cyber security, the more you realise how much it feels like we are on the back foot. Fundamentally the issue is that the tactics and techniques used by hackers seem to move forward much faster that technology Read more…