Labview project organization and management

Question

I am looking for advice/resources for organizing and managing moderate to large applications in labview. I have created an application with over 100 vi's and want to ensure the easiest management and maintenance of the code for the future. Does anyone have opinions on vi libraries, folder use or other methods for keeping projects manageable as the size grows. Most of my past applications were less than half of this size so code control was easy and I could be more sloppy. I have kept good practice in regards to coding and reuse in labview but have not found many articles or software management for labview. I am looking to make the transition from the lab to more commercial products. I have 8 years of extensive self-taught labview experience (10+ years or general programming c/c++ ...) so I am familiar with coding techniques but have not seen too many software engineering and architecture techniques applied to thsi language. Any resources would be greatly appreciated.
-Paul
Paul Falkenstein
Coleman Technologies Inc.
CLA, CPI, AIA-Vision
Labview 4.0- 2013, RT, Vision, FPGA

Answer 1

We are the ones representing the "one with experience" for most of the new developers. As to organizing/structuring a project, I usually have created a directory for each of my projects, with sub-dirs based on major program functional blocks (i.e. User Interface, Initialization, Instruments, DAQ, etc.) containing the code specific to those functional blocks, usually with a sub-dir containing the type def'd controls for that function. Once I've passed a certain arbitray chosen point in the development process, which usually is determined by the complexity of the code to that point, I start making a copy of the master directory every morning, renaming it with a date code or to a newer version ltr/number than the previous day's and do my work in that, giving me a "revert" path. On some projects, at some customers, I have used SourceSafe, or other configuration management programs, but much of the time I am the only developer, so it isn't _as_ necessary. I have had mixed results with the various CM programs, they weren't developed to work with a graphical language like LabVIEW, so a lot of the tools won't work. There have been a few threads devoted to the problems and solutions that others have implemented in multideveloper environments, so a search should turn up some info. The biggest CM issue that I have been running into is the addition of "stuff" (utilities, new instruments, etc.) to the developers local LabVIEW palettes. It is one thing to be "checking out" pieces of the project's code, but it becomes problematic if there are things unique to the developers individual environment vs. things that are in the project's folder. You go to load some code and it can't find the version of the HP666A that "Bob" has in his instrument palette.
Good luck,
P.M.Message Edited by LV_Pro on 06-30-2005 10:28 AM
Putnam
Certified LabVIEW Developer
Senior Test Engineer
Currently using LV 6.1-LabVIEW 2012, RT8.5
LabVIEW Champion