Machine interface advice 1

[Chillermec]

I have an interest in developing my own machine computer interface software with graphics. Which software tools / programming languages best lend themselves to this? I'm sure this is subjective, but, all responses would be appreciated!

 

[richs]

TCL/TK which stands for "Tool Command Language /Tool Kit"
is used by over half a million developers worldwide and has become a critical component in thousands of corporations. It has a simple and programmable syntax and can be either used as a standalone application or embedded in application programs. Best of all, Tcl is open source so it's completely free.

Tk is a graphical user interface toolkit that makes it possible to create powerful GUIs incredibly quickly. It proved so popular that it now ships with all distributions of Tcl.

http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/

Now, I don't personnally use TCL, however, I do use Perl/TK.
I've used Perl for years, so it's one less language that I
have to learn, however, there are many folks who I respect
that use TCL for their efforts.

Cheers,

Rich S.

 

[melone]

Labview is another industry standard...

 

[nbucska]

Yes but Labvw. sometimes is painfully slow

<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[melone]

True, but having written in both TCL\TK and Labview, the "graphics" in Labview is a bit more straightforward. However, if you are have to perform task that are sensitive to timing, Labview doesn't do that too well.

 

[analogkid2digitalman]

Chillermec

I vote for LabView for GUI development, but that is primarily what I do programming in.

Melone/nbucska, I know we touched on LabView being painfully slow before, but it really isn't. But I do agree, it is expensive.
nbucska- I tought you did't do Windows!

Refer to link comparing LabView execution speeds:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd...86256C9400733D7F?opendocument&node=DZ52061_US

 

[Chillermec]

Guys..... thanks for the input. I am not a programmer, but, I have " picked a lot of things up " in life by diving in. This will help me to start out at least with a tool geared to what I am looking for. Thanks again!

 

[melone]

analogkid2digitalman, it depends on your definition of "painfully slow". If you need signals to be asserted in the 100's of ms, then Labview is just fine. However, if you need 100's of ns, then Labview will NEVER work. There is simply too much overhead due to Windows, and you can not determine when "things" are going to happen.

 

[analogkid2digitalman]

melone- I agree, but wouldn't the same restriction apply to any language running in Windows? An alternative is LabView Real Time for deterministic applications, it executes the downloaded code on it's own processor board in the PC or PXI and totally skips Windoze. Doubt that I would ever need it for my current applications.