The LabVIEW Style Book

Chapter 4. Block Diagram

The LabVIEW block diagram excels at conveying source code. A really good diagram is enlightening, even awe-inspiring, like a work of art. A careless diagram, however, can appear as jumbled as a bowl of spaghetti. Indeed, these two extremes are depicted by Meticulous VI and Spaghetti VI in Chapter 1, “The Significance of Style.” Somewhere in the middle between artwork and spaghetti is where most applications reside. Some developers have neat wiring practices but large, flat diagrams. Others have overly modular diagrams that disguise the architecture. Still others prefer variables over data flow. Many, many developers skimp on documentation to save time. Moreover, most diagrams are characterized by tradeoffs between good ...