How to - The SAS Workshops Blog (Page 3)

Getting Started with 3-D Printing

I did a job a few years ago for a mining company. We were building a tester to test soil samples. I was amazed that many of the parts for the tester were 3-d printed. I thought it was pretty cool technology. At the time I thought it could be

How to

PPL Paths

As some of you may know, we host a Virtual Coffee on Tuesday mornings. It started out as a part of our local LabVIEW User Group ALARM. A bunch of us ALARM members would get together every couple weeks in person for coffee. When COVID hit, we couldn’t do

Design Patterns , How to , OOP

Dynamic Unloading of Classes

In my previous post, I did a demo of the factory pattern. In it I showed how to dynamically load classes based on their path. One thing you may have noticed in that demo is that the classes stayed in memory even after the Test VI stopped running. If you

Python , TestStand , How to

Python Adaptor in TestStand

I wrote a recent post about calling Python from LabVIEW. As it turns out you can also call Python directly from Test Stand as well. In TestStand 2019 a new Python Adaptor was added. Rather than create my own example, I will just point you to the shipping example. It’

Python , How to

Python node basics

I have been learning a bit about Python lately. I find it a nice complement to LabVIEW. Like LabVIEW it is very good for writing quick little scripts and rapidly prototyping things. Unlike LabVIEW, it is not strictly typed, which makes it rather interesting to me. A few years ago

How to , SCC

Setting up LVCompare and LVMerge

EDIT: Since I originally wrote this post, I have come up with a much easier way. I am leaving this post up for historcial reasons, but do yourself a favor and just go here There has been some discussion on LinkedIn and other places about how best to setup LVCompare

How to , SCC

Automatically Creating A Gitlab Repo

I’ve been working on streamlining some of my processes lately. I noticed that one of the one things that takes a little time is creating a new GitLabRepository. It just seemed like it took too much time. Here are the previous steps 1. Goto GitLab Webpage 2. Login 3.

How to , SCC

SSH keys and git bash

So when it comes to git I much prefer ssh over https. I can’t clearly articulate why, I just do. However one thing I noticed is that git bash was constantly asking me for the password for my ssh key. It got annoying so I did a little research

How to , SCC , Coding Philosophy

Changing Git's default branch

In the wake of the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death and the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, there has been a lot of talk in the tech community about changing some of the terms we use. There was a lot of focus on moving away from using master and

How to , Random

Right to Repair

A few weeks ago I noticed that the lightning port on my iphone 8 was not working very well. My headphones kept cutting out and the power cord would fallout of the lightning connector. I decided to fix it myself rather than take it somewhere. I had used iFixit before

How to , Software tools

Enhanced State Diagram Editor

I was talking to Fab a while ago and she put me onto the Enhanced State Diagram editor. Apparently it is one of Jeff K’s pet projects. It is a way to create a state machine by drawing the diagram in a special editor that automatically generates the LabVIEW

How to , SCC

Git Reflog

In a previous article, I talked about orphaned commits. First, let’s talk about why they are bad. They are bad because they will eventually be removed by git’s garbage collection algorithm, losing the data forever. The reflog is designed to prevent that (for a time). In my previous

How to , SCC

Navigating a git repository

Navigating the Commit Graph Sometimes we want to go back and revisit a particular commit in our project. We might want to do that for a variety of reasons: * Maybe a customer reports a bug in a specific version. We might go check out that tag to reproduce the bug.

SCC , Software tools , How to

Git Tips For Beginners

Git is a great source code control tool, but it is not known for being user friendly. It’s actually a shame. The way in which git stores and references content is incredibly elegant, but it’s UI seems more of an afterthought. The command structure is not at all

SCC , How to

Git Basics

I am working on some new training material on git. I thought I would use a series of blog posts to kind explore some ideas and help clarify my thinking. Learning git can be difficult. I want this material to be approachable to beginners, yet still detailed enough that they

Frameworks , How to

Managing Dependencies with DQMH Messages

In one of his talks, Uncle Bob describes Software Engineering as the art of managing dependencies. This is something that a lot of new programmers have difficulty with. I often run into code written by beginners (and some not-so-beginnners) that has lots of circular dependencies. I also see a lot

How to , Software tools , Unit Testing

Caraya Review

Caraya is a popular Unit Testing solution from JKI. Compared to JKI VI Tester, Caraya seems to be newer and better supported. In fact while conducting this review I found a small bug. I reported it and it was fixed within 24 hours. The Caraya paradigm is different from the

How to , Software tools , Unit Testing

Insta Coverage

I first heard about InstaCoverage at NI Week 2018. I was part of a panel discussing Unit Testing. Peter Bokor gave a brief presentation right before the panel started on a new unit testing tool IncQuiry Labs had created called InstaCoverage. He really emphasized the code coverage calculation. This is

How to , Software tools , Unit Testing

AST Unit Tester Review

I recently did a review of JKI VI Tester. While it is my goto unit testing tool, there are several issues with it: * You have to be an admin to install it. * It adds a ton of dependencies to your project. * If you have a project that has tests in

How to , Software tools , Unit Testing

Using JKI VI Tester

If you have been following my posts, you will know that I am a big fan of JKI VITester. It is my goto Unit Tester. Why? Mostly because it is an implementation of xUnitStyle testing, which means that I can easily use all of the great patterns outlined in xUnit

How to

Using Maps As A Better Way To Pass Command Line Arguments

So for those who don’t know, LabVIEW 2019 incorporates some new datatypes: Sets and maps. Piotr Kruczkowsk has been posting a bunch of possible use cases on Twitter. You can see them here. Peter has inspired me to come up with one of my own. The problem with CLI

How to

Update VMs on SSDs

This post is an update to my previous posts on using Virtual Machines (VMs). Here are some links to those articles: * Using Virtual Machines Part 1 * Using Virtual Machines Part 2 In part 2 I included a section on where to store VMs. I mentioned that I was using a

How to , Software tools , Resources

Using Virtual Machines Part 2

This is second of a 2 part series on using Virtual Machines for LabVIEW development. You can check out part 1 here. Part 1 discusses why we use virtual machines. This article will discuss a little more of the how. I’m not going to give away all my secrets,

How to , Resources , Software tools

Using Virtual Machines Part 1

My friend Peter Davis recently asked if I could do a blog post how we use virtual machines (VMs) for LabVIEW development. Before I go into too much detail, I do want to say that I learned a lot of what I know about VMs from John Giannangeli of Bolder

Book Reviews , How to , SCC

Gitting Started With Git

What do you use for source code control? While I was asking everyone I met at NI Week about what frameworks they were using, I also started asking about source code control as well. Almost everyone I talked to universally said they were using some kind of source code control.