Virtual Soldering

Even experienced electronics engineers occasionally find themselves confronted by the need to swap soldering iron for keyboard: not all projects can be realised purely in hardware. LabVIEW makes an excellent choice of programming language for engineers!When a PC forms an integral part of a technical solution and no suitable software is available off the shelf, some programming is required. There are various solutions to this problem: suitable modern programming languages include C in its various forms such as C++ or C#, Visual Basic from Microsoft, Delphi from Borland or even LabVIEW from National Instruments (NI).Visual Basic is designed rather for smaller applications, whereas C has for a long time been a universal tool. Delphi is an alternative for those who are not comfortable with C’s idiosyncrasies and prefer the structured style of Pascal. The majority of all large applications and all modern PC operating systems are written in C: and with good reason. This gives rise to the generally-held opinion that ‘real programming’ should be done in C, since C, of all the third-generation languages, produces the most elegant and fastest solutions. So what about LabVIEW?