Graphical programming languages allow a natural, intuitive man-machine interaction. As a result, graphical
programming has gained much popularity over the past several years, primarily because many scientists and
engineers have experienced improvements in programming efficiency due to the natural understandability of
graphical programming tools. In general, however, there is a perception that the graphical paradigm does not
lend itself well to large-scale applications. The following paper examines the suitability of graphical
programming languages to real-world applications. The specific graphical programming language evaluated in
this paper is LabVIEW, though some of the concepts discussed apply to other visual programming languages
as well. A relatively large case study involving simulation as well as real-time acquisition programmed in
LabVIEW is investigated. Advantages and limitations of LabVIEW for such applications are discussed.