National Instruments’ (NI) latest incarnation of LabVIEW actually forks in two: One branch is NXG (Fig. 1), and the other is LabVIEW 2017, which builds on LabVIEW 2016 and provides upward compatibility (see “What’s the Difference Between LabVIEW 2017 and LabVIEW NXG," appearing later today). This represents probably the biggest change in LabVIEW since it was first released in 1986. Both of the new packages were introduced at NI Week 2017 (see “NIWeek: The Best Electronic Conference” on electronicdesign.com).
LabVIEW NXG 1.0 and LabVIEW 2017 share a common architecture and compiler—the G compiler. They have different front ends and common underpinnings, but neither is a superset of the other. Each comes as part of the latest incarnation of LabVIEW, so developers are able to use one or both as desired. LabVIEW 2017 provides upward compatibility with LabVIEW 2016 projects. Most projects can be migrated to LabVIEW NXG, although LabVIEW NXG lacks some features found in its siblings.