SW2007 beta

....just wondering what the feeling is this time about beta....

You all as keen as mustard to participate? - your employer giving you time,
or are you just poking and tinkering at home out of curiosity?

Think you will try hard for a main prize? - everyone's going to look cool in
their SW t-shirt at least...

Do you feel beta is delivering real results for users- maybe SW don't
deliver despite the good work of beta testers??

Anything catch your interest in SW2007 that you are really hanging out for?

-discussion and random thoughts welcome....

 

I used to beta since 2003. Not so harshly, as some of you guys, but still
spent reasonable time on the new one. Results? Well...

1./ My IT guy went as far as to the CEO to get me out of the betas, saying,
that these unfinished pieces threathen the stability of our system. Not
talking about my workstation on which he hated the new and 'unauthorized'
installations.
2./ Betas caused quite a few problems (add-ins, toolbar settings, and I am
sure they also participated in the number of crashings, too). I does not
have the luxury to be able to install the beta on a separate, dedicated
workstation and to continue working on another box.
3./ I duly reported a _few_ errors. Not many, just a few per release. But
they were quite serious ones and very stubborn ones as well - actually they
have been so persistant that I (and you, and everyone) kept enjoying them
for a long time. Some are with us even today. _None_ of them have been taken
into consideration at all.
4./ Beyond getting into a dogfight with the IT guys every time I had to
'steal' a few minutes-hours-tens of hours to do betas, because obviously SW
Corp forgot to honour my (and others') efforts... The Engineering Manager
does not like betas straight away, and rightly so - we are doing quite a
quantity of past-beta testing in the 'final' releases anyhow, wheter we like
it or not.

So I decided not to participate in the beta-program any more.

John

 

From the published lists, I look forward most to the push-pull
surface, Toolbox improvements. I look at Toolbox improvements as much
needed and long overdue bug fixes. There isn't much I'd like to see
more than a few general areas fixed, such as sketch relations, mates,
and interface inconsistencies.

There will always be people to tinker with new software, regardless if
it is profitable or not, people who just want to stay on top of what's
new. I'm not sure the prizes mean much to folks (although I have to
say I've gotten a lot of miles out of my 40 Gb iPod). I keep hoping
that sending the message of finding tons of bugs will cause SW to do
something differently than in previous releases. There are really only
maybe a dozen folks that really turn in a lot of bugs with each beta,
although there are a lot of people who download more out of curiosity
than anything.

I think they get good information from the beta program, any
dissatisfaction comes along the lines of what they do with that info.
Bunches of beta reported bugs make it into SP0.

 

I've beta tested the last two releases, and I really appreciate the
opportunity. It's both a chance to make the software better and a chance to
see what's coming. I get to test with my data--to use features and
operations that I typically use to see if it works.

The prizes do (should?) mean a lot to me, but I can't compete with the
"super" power users who rack up hundreds of beta points. I came in a
respectable 17th (as a user with one year of experience and limited
opportunity to beta test--mostly at home). All I got though was a t-shirt.
I'd like some sort of drawing for the top 20 or 25 testers with each having
an equal opportunity to win prizes.

I'll be there again this year.

Brian

 

I honestly think, a years free subscription or the cash equivalent for the
top 50 testers would be fair incentive.

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

Anything catch your interest in SW2007 that you are really hanging out for?

I'll wait and see. Still on 2004. Too many file conversion problems on
the released versions of 2006 to date. Too few benefits. A few
functionality losses.

Looking at the 2007 presentation at SWW a lot of the enhancements
seemed to be focussed on new users.

I'll have a look at beta just because SW puts in stuff that doesn't
get communicated and I want to know what it is.

 

How about the following for a prize structure? An Xbox or PSP is a non
prize or disincentive to me and probably a lot of others. I propose a
different prize structure.

1st - all reported problems fixed before release
2nd - all reported problems fixed before release
3rd - all reported problems fixed before release

Random prize - half the reported problems fixed before release

Since the number of points awarded is proportional to the number of
problems, 2nd and 3rd are actually lesser prizes.

 

I to have been beta testing since 2000 and like the ability to test my
files with the new programs and help to make it a better program. I wish
they would do the same thing that Cadkey did when beta testing. Cadkey
gave everyone a seat of the new version for testing after it was
released. You couldn't use that seat for upgrading to the next version
but it was more than a T shirt.

 

Yeah, I could go for that. That would have more value than any piece
of electronics they could come up with.

When I placed second, the prize was a Tivo. I don't have a television,
so the Tivo wasn't going to do me any good. I asked to be given a
lower prize, the iPod, and they said ok.

Still, the prize wasn't why I participated, there was no guarantee of
getting a prize. I participated to get the bugs fixed, so I think
Paul's suggestion would be terrific. It would be better for everyone
involved, except the guy who wants an X-box (who would be able to
afford one if he didn't spend 20% of his billable time working around
bugs).

 

I love the idea, but there is no way we could ever get SW to go for it. They
can't promise to fix all of the problems before release and keep to any
"reasonable" release schedule. Suppose one of the winners comes up with an
obscure bug that won't be seen by many people, has an easy work-around, and
is caused by some deep problem in the structure of the program that requires
a huge rewrite?


Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Jerry,

A reasonable release schedule would be mid December for SW 2007. Now if
they want to call it 2006+ and release in June that is another thing
entirely. Just think about the poor CAD administrator that just
implemented 2006 SP3.1 and now has to start testing 2007. For a new
user this won't make much sense, but when a new release comes out
models will be broken and need repair. Conversion will show up a lot of
these, but time must be taken to fix the problems and learn all the new
stuff.

Why not spend a few extra months at SW debugging before releasing it
for beta? They have a lot of powerful tools for this. Heuristic
debugging has its strong points provided a consistent base of users is
found. I'm still pooped from 2006 Beta. Four rounds lasting months and
then several months of use in the field and I still don't have
confidence in the result.

I don't know, maybe I am just getting old and the years are passing by
faster. Whew!

 

"reasonable" release schedule

???

Hi Jerry - My vote for them and a "reasonable release schedule" - don't
release buggy stuff to us, "the customer". I wish for only one baby
step so that they (and we) do not have to ride the 6-9 month
development roller coaster that they (and those foolish enough to
follow) are perpetually on.

STOP NAMING IT AFTER THE YEAR and the expecation of yearly release
might fade into oblivion!!! Nobody can do good work under constant
time duress - nobody! And I bet you the folks who write that code are
under duress - it comes thru in in the instability of each release.

Now really - they need to slow this baby down a bit and I do really
believe that they have a drop dead release date and it is not likely
negotiable, so it seems, that when the date drops, the code is released
in spite of any remaining "bugs and inelegancies" that remain. Most of
us "old" users (read "burned before") know enough not to jump on the
sp.0 upgrade bandwagon. (oops sorry man I think I just started on a
mini-tirade without answering the real question).

For beta, I will give them as much time as they will give back to me to
help me debug the products that I design using their software. I think
that it would not be much to ask for them allocate an engineer for a
month or so to help me do some of my work. Haha - help them with beta?
I will never give another second to beta testing their software (have
in the past and did not get things fixed) - testing their software is
_their_ job, not ours. How absurd would it be if someone designed a
bridge and asked for beta testers to drive some heavy laden trucks over
it to "beta test it for us"? I'm smiling here, but I equate the
testing with this sort of mentaility - "you know, we might not have
poured the footers too well and we need to see if it bridge can stand
up and there also might be a crack in some of the welds and we also did
not really look at the forces, so if you are not busy, would you mind
giving it a go . . ." The good news in all of this - the bridge was
opened on time. Ok the risks are different, but I think of the lazy
bridge builder . . .

If our input is so valuable, pay for the time with cold hard cash, just
like the rest of the world.

Actually _hire_ the ""top 50" and compensate them for their time -
maybe $5k per person ($250k for testing). Then you could really get
some output. Ok . . . it's a pipe dream . . . luckily I don't run the
world . . .

Later,

SMA

 

I've been using SolidWorks for 6 1/2 years. Now, I only upgrade when I have
to. Many longtime users feel this way, they're burned out. I have clients
that still use 2004, and they're completely happy.

Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

Seth, you're scaring me, we will be switching to '06 in may /june. Hope that
SP4 will take care of the leftover bugs, and not bring too many...
I still can call it off.

 

I think this URL says it all:

http://www.scotforge.com/sf_rfq.htm

Note the CAD used. Either the web page is badly out of date or their SW
is.

 

Thanks for the answer.
The first reason for upgrade is the coming of some new features that will be
helpful.
Almost tie, is the fear that if we miss too many releases, we might
encounter big pbs translating our models.
And it's a good time to put everyone in class for a couple (and a half)
days. Teach the upgrade, recall best practices (thanks to SW NG), and
discuss company practices.

 

Jean Marc,

Consider carefully what this means. "Almost tie, is the fear that if we
miss too many releases, we might encounter big pbs translating our
models. "

We have SolidWorks files going back to the days when .prt was the file
extension for parts. These files are in our vault. Given the problems
that ALWAYs crop up when converting from one release to another and the
fact that SW conversion utillity won't convert files under a PDM system
it must always work with files from past releases no matter how far
back. SW has to work year after year without requiring any rework for
past models. If it does not, it is violating the data reuse assumption.

 

Well, i think I would naively have checked them out, translated, and back
in.
I am surprised you are not concerned about performance hit, translating the
files at opening. And if you have a reccurent translation error? --- Well I
guess you have not.