[Sneap] LabView vs. Epics

[Manu Poletti]

Dear David,

I know this is a bit out of context now but I felt that I should add 
something to this.

We have a control system that is __only__ based on LabView. We do suffer 
from limitations because of this. These limitations included; a lack of 
good community code libraries, a lack of native support for scripting, and 
DataSockets. Don't use DataSockets, they offer a simple data connectivity 
solution but are flawed.

However LabView has some advantages as well; Native and intuitive 
multi-threading, simplicity and transparency of code (that is if it has 
been well designed), and reliability. LabView is in my experience quite 
reliable, that is to say it is as reliable as the windows computer that it 
is running on.

We have solved the vendor lock-in problem by using a single version of 
LabView (V6.1, 2001) and stubbornly refusing to upgrade. It is cheap and, 
as we use Group3 control hardware, we have not had to upgrade to stay 
compatible with new hardware.

If we could start over with design and implementation, would we take 
LabView again? Well, maybe. I think we would consider about using EPICS 
and LabView together. LabView for the data acquisition and the user 
interfaces and maybe write some back-end functions in other languages. 

All the best,

Manu Poletti
National Isotope Centre
GNS Science
PO Box 30-368, Lower Hutt
New Zealand

Phone:  +64 4 570 4667
Fax:    +64 4 570 4657 
Email:  m.poletti at gns.cri.nz