RANT: Is 2006 ready for the big time yet?

Is 2006 ready for the big time yet?

No, not for me it isn't. Case in point. I was having trouble with
alternate position views in 2004. Why not try it in 2006? The 1,400
component, 260 unique part assembly and drawing were imported into 2006
and converted. Configuration driven dimension mates that worked in the
assembly in 2004 no longer worked in 2006. The graphics display went
berserk, but that was cured by shutting down* SW2006 and restarting it.
The dimensions that didn't work at first were made to work by a
circuitous route that forced rebuilds of certain components and
subassemblies by suppressing and unsuppressing mates. And the problem
with alternate position views still wasn't fixed.

* I didn't have to do anything to shut down as SW went to the desktop
automatically.

SW2006 SP 3.1

 

I would fathom that it IS absolutely ready for the uncompensated beta .
.. . cough cough . . . testers who are willing to donate some of their
time to SW to get the 2006 "released" version production worthy . . .
(Grin) . . . I prefer to think of this leg of the product development
journey as "validation via public testing" . . .

Later,

SMA

 

Burn both versions (2004 and 2006) to DVD send it to your VAR, ask them
to fix it or get them to ask SolidWorks to fix it. This could then
justify your "subscription service" fees.

Let me know if they can get it to convert and how long it takes them,
then I might just start using 2006 SP4 in production.

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

TimeBox says 4 hours of attempted workarounds is enough. This project
was supposed to be done Monday afternoon.

 

Well I don't think the uncompensated part is that big a deal. There are
a lot of people who put in a lot of time on beta in 2006. I was one of
them, and in the top 25%. There is so much ground to cover and some of
the specialty stuff just won't get covered, especially with the
relative inexperience many beta testers. I wonder how many beta testers
gave Alternate Position views a thrashing in the last Beta? I'll bet
not many.

 

Hehe - Just so we are clear I am referring to the beta testing that the
public is doing RIGHT NOW (for 2006), not those kind souls that
previewed the software before release and gave feedback . . . I get
the impression that SW is fully aware of this situation and that they
don't mind putting out a product that is "good enough", but still
sub-par, perhaps some gaping holes with the mentality that "we can't
possibly test everything, let's let the public find it for us".
Unfortunately if the thousands of folks who rush right to the new
release were told "oh yeah, you are our second wave of beta testers and
if things go bad, we might be able to fix it, we might not, you will
now have to communicat with us via the enhancement request and SPR
system (largely broken in my mind)" then we (the public) might not rush
to upgrade so soon.

By the way, I am not opposed to having imperfect code released as long
as the things are non-catastrophic bugs and not real show stoppers -
new functionality will always have usability issues. I think that
their threshold for what they are willing to release into production is
much too low and the end result is that too many "heavy hitters" hit
the street, wating for us all to find them and report them, costing
those of us who "jump too soon" into the new release to lose
productivity. There is no value in any of this for us, and ultimately
for them - if they continue to erode their credibility by releasing
unstable stuff. I think that for us to upgrade to a new version it
should not be like stepping up to the roulette table in Las Vegas with
the hopes that things might possibly work out, maybe if we are lucky .
.. .

My wish is that they might take some of our maintenence money and hire
a few more validation engineers.

Later,

SMA

 

my customers and I have settled into a routine, finally, where none are
adopting a new release until the next version is
"finished" with its beta phase. we may skip 2006 altogether.

if only everyone would agree to go back to sw2001, we'd get a lot more work
done.

 

In this case I'm missing alternate position views in a newer version.
They work for simple things but not for my complex assembly. This is a
big deal and I'm still cleaning egg off my face.

 

This situation is frustrating, it seems they aren't getting the bugs
our until SP4 or SP5 now. Unfortunately these are the last updates of
the software version. The functional life of a release (time from a bug
free, stable release - until the last release) is now in the order of
about three months or less!
We are still on SW2003 due to issues we had with SW2004 and SW2005
that SolidWorks could not fix. We eventually had to find our own
work-around.
Now we have delayed deploying SW2006 until this pdf issue is cleaned
up. My management is starting to question why we are paying
subscription fees!
There, I am finished my venting, sorry to put you throught it but I
hope SolidWorks will eventually understand what we are all concerned
about here: a continual stream of Beta releases is not good software.
Brad

 

Not to be an ass or anything, but you should have known by now that
upgrading to the first release of the year (SP0.0) was not a very good
idea if you have a critical project to get done. Maybe a little
testing beforehand would have been prudent. Our company tests EVERY
bit of new software that may affect critical areas of the business
before implementing it. Yes, I know that the software SHOULD work fine
right out of the box, but you know as well as I that this is never the
case wether it be SolidWorks, Pro-E, Excel, IE, etc. Seems that
nothing is perfect nowadays, so you gotta be ready for that.

 

What are alternate position views? Do you mean views other than top,
right, iso, etc? How complex does the assembly have to get before they
stop working?

--
J Kimmel

www.metalinnovations.com

"Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum." - When you have
their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.

 

As to what alternate position views are the best place to discover this
is in the SW training or in help. Look at your Insert/Drawing View/
menu.

As to how complex the assembly has to get, I don't know. I know it
works with simple assemblies, but not with the one I have at hand. I
was hoping others who have run into this could help with that
question.

 

The problem occurs in both the last SP for 2004 and in 2006 SP3.1 which
is .3 away from being current now. I have waited, and waited and
waited.

 

....


I think willingness to mess with half-baked software is a personality
trait more than anything. For what I do, the older software would
have just as many workaround detours as the new stuff, but also some
missing functionality which I have come to rely on. Workarounds seem
to be part of the game, regardless. I'm more willing to play with the
half-baked stuff than most maybe, being a touch less
conservative/timid.

I have noticed, though, that a lot of people, more than with other
releases, are not moving forward to 06. There are only a few
compelling reasons to move forward - some new spline functionality,
Display States is a huge plus. These are the only real benefits to me
in the new software.

I know SW is getting the message to slow down and be more careful,and
I know they take it seriously, but they are simply not delivering
results. There has been a bit of a change of the guard, and things
appear to be taking a step backwards rather than forwards. Again,
it's not because they don't want to deliver good software or that they
don't care, it's just that in the end, for whatever reason, they just
don't. I suspect it's because they are going too fast, and there are
other business pressures.

Anyway, I keep using it, and keep upgrading. Variably during a single
day, I think "wow, what great software this is!", and then sometimes
"geezis, this stuff is sloppy!", and sometimes "F$%#! This s&%* is
un-freaking-usable!!" In the end, I still get my job done, although
sometimes at a cost of time and quality.

 

There will be a point, for many it has already passed, that future
"upgrades" of SolidWorks will not provide any additional profit to your
company's bottom line.

Take Microsoft Office for example, we are still on Office 2000 and many
companies are still on Office 97. We still get spreadsheets and docs
made and we get paid even though we are not on the newest release.

 

Which may explain SW overarching effort to sell new seats before
anything else. SW still doesn't have a save to older version like excel
and word do. And I don't begrudge SW for doing this, but the future
will still lie elsewhere.

So what would get existing customers to reup? Two things in my mind are
robustness and speed. It would seem they are on the cusp of a falling
away if things don't start changing.

I don't think there is a workaround for the problem I just ran into and
it is a standard drawing functionality although not much used.

 

Matt I agree with you on all your point s except the above - I don't
use either at all - but for the life of me I can't remember why I
upgraded to 2006 except that I always hope for the best !! but am
always dissappointed ;-) (actaully all I needed was the camera for
Maxwell and i can't bare trying to keep two versions on the same
machine - I'm just not organized enough)

Its 10 years since sw came out - it was 10 years (approx) before that
PRo-E and its ilk came out (I think but someone will correct me) -
What is the new 3d Cad software that we all need to change to?

How much do we need to raise as capital to start up a new company to
develope the next generation - $5 m $50m £100m ? - I am sure somebody
out there must already be on the case. The owner of Infosys has just
bought a house next to my Mum and Dad in India. Should I ask him for
a loan?

It seems that software only has a life of 10years before it just gets
tied up in its own code and just can't be made to develope any further
or respond if a new kid on the block arrives who cuts through the
Gordian knot.

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Dale,

In general I can get alternate views to work too. For whatever reason
though, it was not working for me this day in a very repeatable way.
Perhaps it was due to the in-context stuff going on. Perhaps it was a
problem with configurations. Perhaps it had to do with Lightweight and
rebuilds. I rather doubt beta testing would have caught this. It was
broke in 2004 and broke in 2006.

We ran into another one with eDrawings today. My boss wanted an
eDrawing of a part with feature dimensions showing as he had them on
the part. eDrawings did not properly scale the dimensions or the
arrows. So we had to scale the dimensions to 3ft tall and the arrows to
1ft/3ft/5ft to get a decent display in eDrawings. This of course made
the part impossible to see. eDrawings didn't carry over the show all
dimensions the same size checkbox from SW2004 through 2006. This was
fixed way back in the early days of SW like around 96 or 97.

 

" I wonder how many beta testers gave Alternate Position views a
thrashing in the last Beta? I'll bet
not many."

I also wonder if the same applies for solidworks engineers. How many
of them gave the software a good thrashing before release? I really
wonder.

It's maybe like me making nice new prototype function of a machine
that works nice and cut it into production without life testing and
validation. Only when something breaks early in the field, I can't
blame my customer for "not giving me enough initial feedback". I just
have to laugh at the notion that we are somehow responsible for the
quality of software that they release into production - we aren't.
Frankly, I can't subscribe to the idea that somehow we owe them free
development time and that if they are not given that time then they
have no option but to release unstable code. If the beta feedback is
so valuable, then extend some sort of actual compensation for your
time. The onus to provide validated and tested software is on them,
not on us.

If you were in the top 25% (thanks) then indeed you should be entitled
to something. This is not some impecunious start-up we are talking
about. If they can benefit from your feedback, they can afford to
reciprocate. I also participated in the 2004 beta (no rank near yours)
but after my reported issues still existed in the production release
and resurfaced in 2005 I decided that my time was better spent
elsewhere. Take care.

Later,

SMA

 

"These things are not complete in the sense
that they don't really fulfill their intended purpose."

So SolidWorks management has taken the view that they will control
their costs of development to an appropriate level to "get buy",
because lots of the 500,000 SolidWorks users will NOT upgrade every
year.

In fact, everyone knows that SP0 though at least SP3 are always Public
Beta Versions, and that is probably why some do not upgrade.

They won't "skip a SWks revision year and fix all the bugs", nor will
they "double the programmers for a year" and fix all the bugs, so we
get a functional mostly bug free 2007 SP0.

This sounds like a Ponzi scheme in reality. Tout the "number of seats
sold", but they really must get close to 90% maintenance fee payment to
make it a viable ongoing success @ Dessault, so in leiu of getting 90%
of seats to do yearly maintenance:

This is a pop quiz: Which method does SolidWorks management solve the
cash cow problem for Dessault to keep the President in his position--

1. Double the number of programmers and testers & intensiveness of
testing or
2. Double the advertising dollars and sell more one time sale SWks
seats?

I think it is obvious SolidWorks CEO has chosen #2 as being in his
self-interest.

I think it is obvious Dessault has agreed with #2 as being in their
self-interest.

Only customer pressure (and probably from their largest customers who
start choosing not to upgrade) are likely to change the equation.

Bo