1.4 What This Book Is

   

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With thanks to John Compton-Smith for the clarification .

In both of the two online LabVIEW communities, there are regular requests from members who are seeking software engineering texts so that they can improve their own work.

Typical LabVIEW users are not trained in software engineering techniques. They are not likely to pick up a book on software engineering or software quality unless forced to do so. We want to address this group by emphasizing a simple methodology that brings the main points of software engineering into play. The use of the LabVIEW Component Oriented Design (LCOD) method is an important building block to understanding the software engineering principles that will be discussed throughout the book.

This book doesn't have the depth usually found in software engineering books. This is because we aim to cover the points made in the level of detail that a practical software user might require and no more. What we have hopefully achieved is an approach to the subject that is direct and nonacademic.

There are a number of heavy academic books on software design and software engineering. Most of them will improve the way you produce software and most will have little appeal to engineers who just want to get on with solving their next problem. Similarly, we haven't padded the book with entry-level chapters for beginners since the documentation shipped with LabVIEW is top quality and it is pointless to replicate it.

Another important point to consider is that although the case study concentrates on Test Systems, the methodology can be applied to any software written in LabVIEW.

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