Re: [volt-nuts] do you like Labview in your labs?
If you stick with a stable version of an opensource software product, and
don't upgrade it, programmers won't "screw with it". On the other hand,
if
you upgrade any software, open source, or not, programmers will have
screwed
with it. That's why it is called an upgrade.
That's why I said "older version". I generally go fr the last Rev before a
major upgrade. Never a new release.
So, you discovered the problem with using an incompetent programmer. They
exist. Any competent programmer would have tested the utility to make
sure
that you could backup and restore everything the utility was supposed to
backup and restore.
Not in this case. The Harvard lab only had 1 disk drive, not several.
Most of the opensource projects are built by teams. Virtually every
project
that I mentioned earlier were written by corporate teams. Openoffice.org
is by
Sun. Mozilla, by Netscape. SELinux, by NSA. Octave, by the University of
Texas, and funded by DEC, SUN, IBM, ..., OpenSolaris is by Sun. Python is
by the Python Software Foundation (A non-profit corporation). The
ubiquitous
scripting language PERL was written by the genius Larry Wall.
So what? You like UNIX. I don't.
Further, if you used any of the earlier versions of windows (95,98,XP),
the
IP layer, and PPP code were lifted verbatim from BSD unix. IE was based
on
the open source mosaic project.
But MS put it together, along with Word, Excel, Access and it all works
well. No muss, no fuss. I used to use Netscape, until it would no longer
work for eBay. I see ZERO advantage to screwing around with myriads of
programs, when all I need is a very few basic tools.
I can't think of a single microprocessor/controller manufacturer in the
last
15 years that didn't first do the porting work for their new machine to
the opensource GCC compiler.
So what? Just because a company uses a CNC machine to make a mold for
something, I just need what comes out of the mold.
You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you had
with one incompetent programmer keep you from enjoying the goodies
offered by the opensource software movement.
And by not moving my various Groups to Facebook also, so I'm told. Not
going to happen.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The tools on my desktop are just about
every one that I need. They are tools, not ends in themselves.
If you stay with the stable releases
of Debian, or Ubuntu, or Mint linux, I dare say you will never find a bug.
-Chuck Harris
I've never found a bug in any of the commercial SW I use, actually. There
are a few crocks, but no bugs.
-John
==============
Well J Forester,
I can see that Bill Gates has convinced you those FLAWS are design features.
However, it never hurts to spend some time investigating some of the Opensource.
Who knows there may actually be a "gem" in there, even within the confines of
your set of rules.
Bill....WB6BNQ
"J. Forster" wrote:
If you stick with a stable version of an opensource software product, and
don't upgrade it, programmers won't "screw with it". On the other hand,
if
you upgrade any software, open source, or not, programmers will have
screwed
with it. That's why it is called an upgrade.
That's why I said "older version". I generally go fr the last Rev before a
major upgrade. Never a new release.
So, you discovered the problem with using an incompetent programmer. They
exist. Any competent programmer would have tested the utility to make
sure
that you could backup and restore everything the utility was supposed to
backup and restore.
Not in this case. The Harvard lab only had 1 disk drive, not several.
Most of the opensource projects are built by teams. Virtually every
project
that I mentioned earlier were written by corporate teams. Openoffice.org
is by
Sun. Mozilla, by Netscape. SELinux, by NSA. Octave, by the University of
Texas, and funded by DEC, SUN, IBM, ..., OpenSolaris is by Sun. Python is
by the Python Software Foundation (A non-profit corporation). The
ubiquitous
scripting language PERL was written by the genius Larry Wall.
So what? You like UNIX. I don't.
Further, if you used any of the earlier versions of windows (95,98,XP),
the
IP layer, and PPP code were lifted verbatim from BSD unix. IE was based
on
the open source mosaic project.
But MS put it together, along with Word, Excel, Access and it all works
well. No muss, no fuss. I used to use Netscape, until it would no longer
work for eBay. I see ZERO advantage to screwing around with myriads of
programs, when all I need is a very few basic tools.
I can't think of a single microprocessor/controller manufacturer in the
last
15 years that didn't first do the porting work for their new machine to
the opensource GCC compiler.
So what? Just because a company uses a CNC machine to make a mold for
something, I just need what comes out of the mold.
You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you had
with one incompetent programmer keep you from enjoying the goodies
offered by the opensource software movement.
And by not moving my various Groups to Facebook also, so I'm told. Not
going to happen.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The tools on my desktop are just about
every one that I need. They are tools, not ends in themselves.
If you stay with the stable releases
of Debian, or Ubuntu, or Mint linux, I dare say you will never find a bug.
-Chuck Harris
I've never found a bug in any of the commercial SW I use, actually. There
are a few crocks, but no bugs.
-John
==============
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
Nothing of the sort. Bill Gates could not possibly convince me that
something that does not work is OK. MS SW works for me.
I've yet to see flaws in the MS or really any other commercial apps. I can
(and still do) run 20+ year old DOS stuff. 10 year old Office stuff still
works fine and has far more features than I'll ever need.
I have seen SW completely cease to work when an OS on a Mac was changed
from N to (N+1).
YMMV,
-John
===================
Well J Forester,
I can see that Bill Gates has convinced you those FLAWS are design
features.
However, it never hurts to spend some time investigating some of the
Opensource.
Who knows there may actually be a "gem" in there, even within the confines
of
your set of rules.
Bill....WB6BNQ
"J. Forster" wrote:
If you stick with a stable version of an opensource software product,
and
don't upgrade it, programmers won't "screw with it". On the other
hand,
if
you upgrade any software, open source, or not, programmers will have
screwed
with it. That's why it is called an upgrade.
That's why I said "older version". I generally go fr the last Rev before
a
major upgrade. Never a new release.
So, you discovered the problem with using an incompetent programmer.
They
exist. Any competent programmer would have tested the utility to make
sure
that you could backup and restore everything the utility was supposed
to
backup and restore.
Not in this case. The Harvard lab only had 1 disk drive, not several.
Most of the opensource projects are built by teams. Virtually every
project
that I mentioned earlier were written by corporate teams.
Openoffice.org
is by
Sun. Mozilla, by Netscape. SELinux, by NSA. Octave, by the University
of
Texas, and funded by DEC, SUN, IBM, ..., OpenSolaris is by Sun.
Python is
by the Python Software Foundation (A non-profit corporation). The
ubiquitous
scripting language PERL was written by the genius Larry Wall.
So what? You like UNIX. I don't.
Further, if you used any of the earlier versions of windows
(95,98,XP),
the
IP layer, and PPP code were lifted verbatim from BSD unix. IE was
based
on
the open source mosaic project.
But MS put it together, along with Word, Excel, Access and it all works
well. No muss, no fuss. I used to use Netscape, until it would no longer
work for eBay. I see ZERO advantage to screwing around with myriads of
programs, when all I need is a very few basic tools.
I can't think of a single microprocessor/controller manufacturer in
the
last
15 years that didn't first do the porting work for their new machine
to
the opensource GCC compiler.
So what? Just because a company uses a CNC machine to make a mold for
something, I just need what comes out of the mold.
You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you
had
with one incompetent programmer keep you from enjoying the goodies
offered by the opensource software movement.
And by not moving my various Groups to Facebook also, so I'm told. Not
going to happen.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The tools on my desktop are just about
every one that I need. They are tools, not ends in themselves.
If you stay with the stable releases
of Debian, or Ubuntu, or Mint linux, I dare say you will never find a
bug.
-Chuck Harris
I've never found a bug in any of the commercial SW I use, actually.
There
are a few crocks, but no bugs.
-John
==============
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
Thanks for a lively discourse on the thread I started ;)
This is what I wished to hear to consider continuing to write my own
or using a specific platform.
I currently write in whatever I can quickly get the job done, not
projecting long term maintainability; but its a trade off between
quick short term gain now or learning a platform because of its
reputation, a reputation I have to take on faith.
Some comments on the thread:
Open source versus commercial: why pick? Use what works.
Joshua Bell: playing in the subway is the wrong place in most places,
particularly rush hour. Folks are rushing getting from a to B.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
Chuck, on the side, did your issues with Prologix GPIB adapter
resolve using Linux?
At 02:30 PM 12/6/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:
You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you had
with one incompetent programmer keep you from enjoying the goodies offered
by the opensource software movement. If you stay with the stable releases
of Debian, or Ubuntu, or Mint linux, I dare say you will never find a bug.
-Chuck Harris
Thanks for these! I can certainly experiment with it without fear of
running out of 30 days!
At 10:34 AM 12/4/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:
You can also use the same openVISA layer with scilab, python, octave, c++, ...
essentially all other open source languages and packages. So things are
pretty nice for GPIB users in open source land... much nicer than in 'doze
land. If only because you don't have to ask anyone's permission to make
changes that make things work better for your needs.
For those that think python is impossible to use, here is a snippet that
will read from your keithley voltmeter:
import visa
keithley = visa.instrument("GPIB::12")
print keithley.ask("*IDN?")
There are many dozens of instruments that have support already in the library,
and adding additional instruments is pretty trivial.
Plotting is as simple as using the python graph function.
Here is another package called pyVlab, which is a python based clone of
Labview:
http://pyvlab.sourceforge.net/
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land.
-Chuck Harris
Ivan Cousins wrote:
Some may not be aware that there is an alternative to the NI VISA layer
that is open source
(GNU General Public License).
I use it with GNU octave as an alternative to Labwindows-Labview.
I like open source tools on linux so they can be changed if needed.
On the web page it is mentioned:
"You might be interested that your vxi11 package can be compiled on
Cygwin/Windows."
I have not tried this.
VXI11 Ethernet Protocol for Linux at:
http://optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk/vxi11/
http://optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk/vxi11/
John C.
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
Marvin E. Gozum wrote:
Chuck, on the side, did your issues with Prologix GPIB adapter resolve
using Linux?
Marvin,
The Prologix GPIB adapter works very nicely on Linux. I use it
primarily with Python, where it is trivial to write data collection,
graphing, and analysis routines.
The only problem I ever had was with my HP3478A DVM. For whatever
reason, it will not work as the only device on the bus with my old
V4.6 adapter, with V5.0 firmware. If there was another device on
the bus, it was fine. Abdul is sending me the latest version, and
I will see if that makes a difference.
My suspicion is that my HP3478A DVM has a problem with its on chip
pull up resistors, and the old Prologix adapter cannot source enough
current to make it work. Adding a second powered on device sources
enough additional current to mask the problem.
Remember, the old adapter was never intended to be a fully drive
compliant controller. It was intended to drive one or two devices.
I have run it with 6 or 7 devices, and as long as all are turned on,
it does just fine.
For those that want a complete example of how to drive the Prologix using
Python, here goes!
#! /usr/bin/env python
7854.py - try out some gpib data collection using the Prologix gpib-usb controller
import os
import termios
import serial
import time
def gpib_init() :
ser.write("++mode 1\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++ifc\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++auto 0\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++eoi 0\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
def gpib_read(addr):
ser.write("++addr " + str(addr) + "\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++read eoi\r")
return ser.readline()
def gpib_write(addr,gpibstr):
ser.write("++addr " + str(addr) + "\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write(gpibstr + "\r")
test program...
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0',rtscts=0,timeout=1)
ser.write("++ver\r")
print ser.readline()
gpib_init()
gpib_write(10,"ID?\r")
print "ID= " + gpib_read(10) + "\r"
gpib_write(10,"VMDR\r")
gpib_write(10,"HMDB\r")
gpib_write(10,"STORED\r")
gpib_write(10,"1 0 2 4 >P/W AVG10\r")
gpib_read(10)
gpib_write(10,"SENDX\r")
time.sleep(4)
print "X=" + gpib_read(10) + "\r"
print "X=" + gpib_read(10) + "\r"
Modify it to your hearts content.
-Chuck Harris
OBTW, Prologix is a great company, I cannot recommend them enough!
John wrote:
10 year old Office stuff still works fine and has far more features
than I'll ever need.
True enough, I much prefer older versions of the Office apps. That
was true even before the hateful "ribbon" interface. BUT. The
current versions of the Office apps won't open old files anymore, so
if you send what you create to someone with the current version,
you're SOL. I have thousands of old Word files that I can't open,
except in a text editor. I have an old version of Word, but MS
doesn't seem to allow one to have both versions installed.
(If someone knows of a good solution to this, I'm all ears. And no,
the Open Office word mangler won't open them, either.)
Best regards,
Charles
I think MS has a format translation site. They certainly do for Excel. And
youi can write older Office files in Office 2007, I believe.
FWIW,
-John
=================
John wrote:
10 year old Office stuff still works fine and has far more features
than I'll ever need.
True enough, I much prefer older versions of the Office apps. That
was true even before the hateful "ribbon" interface. BUT. The
current versions of the Office apps won't open old files anymore, so
if you send what you create to someone with the current version,
you're SOL. I have thousands of old Word files that I can't open,
except in a text editor. I have an old version of Word, but MS
doesn't seem to allow one to have both versions installed.
(If someone knows of a good solution to this, I'm all ears. And no,
the Open Office word mangler won't open them, either.)
Best regards,
Charles
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
Chuck wrote:
The famous violinist Joshua Bell, on a dare from Washington Post humorist
Gene Wiengarten, stood at the entrance to a busy Metro (subway) station, and
played his heart out for a whole day. Quality playing, and quality pieces
of music that concert goers would have payed hundreds of dollars to see at
venues all around the world... And only 3 people stopped to listen. The
rest just hustled through ignoring the busker.
Joshua was rather upset after he finished his dare. It caused
him to rethink his position in the world. He did not like going
from darling of the champagne and caviar set to being ignored
by people that would have paid to attend his concerts.
It was 43 minutes during a morning rush hour:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
At the risk of getting even further off topic, I'll amplify briefly
on Marvin's response to this. The answer lies in the psychology of
solitude in crowds, which is demonstrated nowhere better than among
mass transit commuters during rush hour. The commuters weren't "just
ignoring" Bell, in the sense of not noticing him -- which is how the
Post interpreted it. Rather, regardless of how nice, or beautiful,
or worthwhile his playing was, he was, in the commuters' view,
intruding into their psychological space and assaulting them -- no
different from the guy who accosts passersby with construction pail
percussion, or sermons delivered on a crowded subway platform. The
commuters noticed him, alright, and they were doing the most polite
thing they knew to do when faced with the unwanted intrusion --
studiously ignoring it.
More than a few commuters probably considered a somewhat less polite
response -- pulling the violin out of his hands and stomping it into
little pieces -- and I'll wager that at least a third of those
present would have cheered and clapped if that had happened (perhaps
only until they learned it had been a Strad). Time and place....
Best regards,
Charles
Charles,
You make a good point. People are busy with their own stuff. I would have
walked right by the guy too. I always got annoyed with panhandlers. Even
remarkable things like in this YouTube link get old very quickly, IMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU
FWIW,
-John
==============
Chuck wrote:
The famous violinist Joshua Bell, on a dare from Washington Post humorist
Gene Wiengarten, stood at the entrance to a busy Metro (subway) station,
and
played his heart out for a whole day. Quality playing, and quality
pieces
of music that concert goers would have payed hundreds of dollars to see
at
venues all around the world... And only 3 people stopped to listen. The
rest just hustled through ignoring the busker.
Joshua was rather upset after he finished his dare. It caused
him to rethink his position in the world. He did not like going
from darling of the champagne and caviar set to being ignored
by people that would have paid to attend his concerts.
It was 43 minutes during a morning rush hour:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
At the risk of getting even further off topic, I'll amplify briefly
on Marvin's response to this. The answer lies in the psychology of
solitude in crowds, which is demonstrated nowhere better than among
mass transit commuters during rush hour. The commuters weren't "just
ignoring" Bell, in the sense of not noticing him -- which is how the
Post interpreted it. Rather, regardless of how nice, or beautiful,
or worthwhile his playing was, he was, in the commuters' view,
intruding into their psychological space and assaulting them -- no
different from the guy who accosts passersby with construction pail
percussion, or sermons delivered on a crowded subway platform. The
commuters noticed him, alright, and they were doing the most polite
thing they knew to do when faced with the unwanted intrusion --
studiously ignoring it.
More than a few commuters probably considered a somewhat less polite
response -- pulling the violin out of his hands and stomping it into
little pieces -- and I'll wager that at least a third of those
present would have cheered and clapped if that had happened (perhaps
only until they learned it had been a Strad). Time and place....
Best regards,
Charles
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts
and follow the instructions there.