Remote Debugging in the 21st Century
Now that more jobs have a “work from home” aspect, I thought I would focus this Automation Corner on how debugging has changed over the years. Back in the late 1990s, I first started working […]
Articles by Michael Schwartz
Michael Schwartz completed training at Lowry AFB in 1989 and was honorably discharged after 11 years of serving in the US Army. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Business Management and a minor in Computer Science. He spent two years writing compliance testing software and database applications while stationed at White Sands Missile Range in NM. After leaving the military, he wrote automation software for five years before starting his own automation engineering company in the Denver Metro area. Since 2003, Cal Lab Solutions, Inc. has provided automation solutions to calibration labs around the world.
Moving Away from Waterfall Metrology
Over the years, I have had one foot in the metrology/test and measurement world and the other foot in software and software architecture. With two different perspectives, I tend to look at things from multiple […]
Thinking Outside the Box with Modular Design
We have all heard this before: Think outside the box! But this is easier said than done. It is especially difficult to notice your own blinders because we all see things from our own point […]
A Better Way to MET/CAL® With a Twist of Object-Oriented Programming
by Michael L. Schwartz Fluke MET/CAL® is a great tool for automation, but it is dated. Over the last 40 years, how we write, support, and maintain software has changed dramatically! We have moved from […]
Diff Tools & Revision Control
Most revision control tools come with a diff tool of some kind. And if you develop software and don’t use revision control or a diff tool of some kind, I have to say, “WTF?” A […]
Will ChatGPT Replace Me?
For those of you who have heard about ChatGPT or even played with it, this question of whether it will replace me doesn’t seem to be a question of “If” but more of a question […]
The Hidden Cost of Hardware Upgrades
For years, I have been advocating and teaching the advantages of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and why we, in the metrology industry, need to move away from script-based programming for automation. This often involves explaining […]
Ultra-Fast Development of Automated Calibration Procedures
My last Automation Corner was about Model Driven Engineering, and this one is an example of how Model Driven Engineering makes software development easier and faster. Over the past 25 years of writing automated calibration […]