Monday, April 13, 2009
Download a driver or write your own?
I've been following a thread on the Agilent Vee e-mail group about the pros and cons of instrument drivers. Several points have come up. In particular, whether you should write your own driver or download one. One engineer likes to write his own because he feels that way, he's in control. Not only does he understand how his driver works, but he learns how his instruments work, too.
Another engineer noted that while you can download a driver for just about any instrument, the driver may not do everything you want it to. Writing a driver that handles the most popular 80% of an instrument's functions may be enough for most potentioal users, but not everyone. Thus downloadable drivers may may not provide access to all of an instrument's features.
Then there's the issue of software bloat. Some engineers want a driver that does everything so they don't have to modify a driver when they need a little-used instrument function. That, they argue, saves engineering time and improves productivity. Others argue for a lean driver that just does the functions they need, thus minimizing software size.
What do you prefer? Does small code outweigh instrument interchangability or do you prefer several layers of drivers (VISA, IVI, etc.) that maximize interchangability (although not perfectly) to avoid spending time writing a custom driver?
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