National Instruments has just announced the release of LabVIEW 8.2.1, which by no coincidence, comes around the time that LabVIEW turns 21 years old (thank god they didn’t call it LabVIEW 8.21, but we won’t go there). This is a really exciting release for two main reasons:
- For the first time (that I know of), NI has included a comprehensive list of bug fixes in the readme file that includes the bug IDs (a.k.a CAR Numbers) of the issues that were fixed.
- This is a full installer, rather than just a patch (that would be installed on top of a main installer).
Regarding the listing of bug fixes (item #1), I want to commend NI for their dedication to creating an environment (and relationship with their customers) that promotes high-quality software. By being proud of your bug fixes, you are encouraging users to report them and encouraging developers to fix them. The bug fix list *is* long, but I would rather use the product of a company that is honest about its bugs and dedicated to fixing them, than a company that brushes bugs under the rug.
Regarding item #2, I love having a full installer. I would rather not even have a patch than have to install it on top of another installer. For some reason, I just find the process of install+patch to be a huge pain.
So, thanks NI for this high-quality release and your commitment to improving LabVIEW and saving users’ time during installation — we appreciate it!
I fully agree with you Jim that both making the bug fixes public and having full installer instead of a patch are a great leap towards the right direction of appreciating professional software developers. Great work NI.
-= EXPRESSIONFLOW =-
One thing I’m still missing though, is a list of currently known bugs! Not just the “small” list of known problems they publish.
But unfortunately just publishing fixed bugs and admitting some known problems (they’ll hit the forums soon anyway) doesn’t make a high-quality software. IMO NI has really to work here. NI often introduced very new features with many bugs that were really trouble makers. That happend for LV 7 (which was very stable and usuable with 7.1.1) as well as for LV 8.
Hi, Carsten. Yes, I agree that there needs to be more work done by NI to list known bugs. But, they’re moving in the right direction