Comments on: A Challenge to NI: Use your Application Builder http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/ an unfiltered stream of data flow consciousness Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:49:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Jim Kring http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11524 Jim Kring Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:05:36 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11524 Matt: Another interesting thought is that an engineer who is highly skilled in using NI products might be more valuable to NI when they are working for a large company vs. an NI alliance partner. The reason being that they can more effectively evangelize NI products within that large organization and they probably have a big stack of purchase orders ;) Matt: Another interesting thought is that an engineer who is highly skilled in using NI products might be more valuable to NI when they are working for a large company vs. an NI alliance partner. The reason being that they can more effectively evangelize NI products within that large organization and they probably have a big stack of purchase orders ;)

]]> By: Matt http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11519 Matt Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:21:04 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11519 Interesting point Jim. I wouldn't have thought about how hiring an engineer from the industry might remove a customer. Valid and certainly an eye opening perspective. Thanks! Interesting point Jim. I wouldn’t have thought about how hiring an engineer from the industry might remove a customer. Valid and certainly an eye opening perspective. Thanks!

]]> By: Jim Kring http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11403 Jim Kring Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:04:13 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11403 Matt: Yes, you’re probably right. NI typically doesn’t pay for experience engineers — they prefer to hire right out of college and have them develop their experience within NI. This is what makes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_one%27s_own_dog_food" rel="nofollow">eating their own dog food</a> so important. It would probably benefit NI greatly to hire outside people who are very skilled users of NI’s tools, however, these individuals are, at the same time, both (1) expensive to hire and (2) have an enormous value to NI, when left “out in the wild”, where they directly purchase NI’s products or facilitate the purchase of NI’s products through integration services. Matt: Yes, you’re probably right. NI typically doesn’t pay for experience engineers — they prefer to hire right out of college and have them develop their experience within NI. This is what makes eating their own dog food so important. It would probably benefit NI greatly to hire outside people who are very skilled users of NI’s tools, however, these individuals are, at the same time, both (1) expensive to hire and (2) have an enormous value to NI, when left “out in the wild”, where they directly purchase NI’s products or facilitate the purchase of NI’s products through integration services.

]]> By: Matt http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11399 Matt Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:31:39 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11399 Jim: Interesting point, for years I have maintained the belief that NI doesn't hire enough from industry, since they typically hire right out of college. People that haven't practiced, seldom preach an accurate message. Do you think this hiring practice could be one of the root causes? Just curious about your opinion. Jim:

Interesting point, for years I have maintained the belief that NI doesn’t hire enough from industry, since they typically hire right out of college. People that haven’t practiced, seldom preach an accurate message.

Do you think this hiring practice could be one of the root causes? Just curious about your opinion.

]]> By: Mikael http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11209 Mikael Wed, 28 May 2008 22:25:53 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11209 Jim, 15 Hours, it would be good if you could use a cluster server like this one: http://helmer.sfe.se/ Cheers, Mikael Jim,
15 Hours, it would be good if you could use a cluster server like this one:
http://helmer.sfe.se/
Cheers,
Mikael

]]> By: Ton Plomp http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11193 Ton Plomp Wed, 28 May 2008 11:16:31 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11193 And that's why we love OpenG, Tom see <a href="http://wiki.openg.org/Current_VIs_Parent_Directory" rel="nofollow">here</a>. On the builder issue, what happens during those 15 hours? That are a lot of computations. Ton And that’s why we love OpenG, Tom see here.

On the builder issue, what happens during those 15 hours? That are a lot of computations.

Ton

]]> By: Tom Eilers http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11184 Tom Eilers Wed, 28 May 2008 07:04:27 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11184 It is not only that LVOOP things won't work if you build an application. Also a lot of Properties won't work any more after you build an application and that changes with every Labview version. And the superstar of all the vi's that won't work is the Current Path VI that never was good. It is not only that LVOOP things won’t work if you build an application. Also a lot of Properties won’t work any more after you build an application and that changes with every Labview version. And the superstar of all the vi’s that won’t work is the Current Path VI that never was good.

]]> By: Jim Kring http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11171 Jim Kring Tue, 27 May 2008 22:48:14 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11171 Justin: Regarding, “foreheads simultaneously hitting their desks”, that sounds a lot like what happened when I found out :) Ben: Yes, these concepts are timeless. Thanks for sharing that story. I'm looking forward to sharing some stories about about how we're eating our own dog food at JKI, soon. Mikael: It's too bad you can't use that 30 minutes to catch up on LAVA. Actually, I've worked on an application that takes 15 hours to build! And, it took much longer than that before we did some build optimization (removing some type definitions that were inside the class data cluster). Our solution to the long build time was to have a dedicated build machine with quad (4) core 2 duo processors. But still, this is very impractical -- we can't wait 15 hours to know if a build was successful. Justin: Regarding, “foreheads simultaneously hitting their desks”, that sounds a lot like what happened when I found out :)

Ben: Yes, these concepts are timeless. Thanks for sharing that story. I’m looking forward to sharing some stories about about how we’re eating our own dog food at JKI, soon.

Mikael: It’s too bad you can’t use that 30 minutes to catch up on LAVA. Actually, I’ve worked on an application that takes 15 hours to build! And, it took much longer than that before we did some build optimization (removing some type definitions that were inside the class data cluster). Our solution to the long build time was to have a dedicated build machine with quad (4) core 2 duo processors. But still, this is very impractical — we can’t wait 15 hours to know if a build was successful.

]]> By: Mikael http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11169 Mikael Tue, 27 May 2008 22:17:27 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11169 Hi I hope NI will abandon the LLB structure they are using in the exe-file or at least add folder support in the a LLB, this will make it possible to store everything inside the exe-file. One other painful thing I have is that a quite large application, with lot of classes and lvlibs, it takes me more then 30 minutes to build an executable and during that time I can’t use my computer for something else, since LabVIEW uses all my resources. Cheers, Mikael Hi
I hope NI will abandon the LLB structure they are using in the exe-file or at least add folder support in the a LLB, this will make it possible to store everything inside the exe-file.
One other painful thing I have is that a quite large application, with lot of classes and lvlibs, it takes me more then 30 minutes to build an executable and during that time I can’t use my computer for something else, since LabVIEW uses all my resources.
Cheers,
Mikael

]]> By: Ben http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11166 Ben Tue, 27 May 2008 19:51:00 +0000 http://thinkinging.com/2008/05/27/a-dogfooding-challenge-to-ni-use-your-application-builder/#comment-11166 Good points Jim! That reminds me a war story from back in the day... Ken Olsen (owner and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.) gathered all of his top managers togther and demanded that they assemble a computer system using only the instructions available when they were shipped. It was not very long until the hardware got much easier to work with. Ben Good points Jim!

That reminds me a war story from back in the day…

Ken Olsen (owner and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.) gathered all of his top managers togther and demanded that they assemble a computer system using only the instructions available when they were shipped.

It was not very long until the hardware got much easier to work with.

Ben

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