The Fear...

Automation...Customization...Productivity...

I'm finding more and more companies in fear of what these have created or
should I say failed to prove.

As an example, individuals that make promises, and either fail in keeping
them, or abandon...

Food for thought... to those of us take on the task of developing and
customizing...what we start... we finish...if we plan on leaving... we leave
on good terms or support what we've created.

I'm finding companies dreading on customization because of what prior
developers have done, failed or abandoned.

The same goes to myself...

So what is the fear? bit by bit some companies rather wanting bare autocad
than using what they call second party software. I've even heard of some
want to even abondoning autocad all together...

Have you experienced the same?

Anne, please don't remove...it is related to customization...

 

I'm fortunate enough to work for a company with management that knows what
these programs are capable of and is willing to give me enough leaway to get
an idea up and running to prove what my idea can do. All within reason of
course. By the same token, this generous hand from management is probably
also ready to whack my butt right out the door if I abuse it or can't
provide proof of efficiency. That's been my problem here. I'm on limited
time for developing and implementing, but they are ALWAYS looking for
increased efficiency. We've gotten bit by several I.T/customization types
in the past and I can see that it has made them a little gunshy about
tossing money after 'toys', but I've found that if I get my act together, go
forward with solid documentation and good reasoning, they are more willing
to see it as a tool rather than a toy. However, from what I have read in
these groups, I think I am far in the minority.

 

Rudy,
I don't have any negative experiences with regard to other's attitudes
toward customization. Of course, I am self-employed as an architect
and do the customization for myself. In my capacity as an instructor,
I have used customization only sparingly to assist with classroom
standardization. Although I use extreme customization at my office,
I prefer to teach students the basics without any customizations so that
they are not dependent on them.

Since Autodesk has begun developing the verticals, there seems to be
less need for user customization and more need to learn the object oriented
Autodesk tools.

It's easy to overhype any custom solution. The pace of
change is now so rapid and the choices so broad that many are
undoubtedly confused as to which direction to take and which software
to commit to.

Regards,
Doug

 

Wise decision. I see "well, I used to just
push.... and it did....." far too often.

 

while the teaching of the basics of AutoCAD is very important, learning the
program from the ground up, I also find it interesting that a lot of people
that I talk to that are supposedly proficient at CAD don't even know that
customization is available. LISP? Huh? VLisp? Double Huh?? Macros or
scripts...what's that?? I'm very lucky in that I've never been employed by
someone else in my 15 years or so of AutoCAD use so have been free to
customize and tweak as I see fit. But for others coming out of "CAD School"
they need to firstly know what can happen, and then how to make it happen.
Having the freedom and the time to do so is another matter but they at least
need to know of the possibilities.
Dave
DDP

 

Thanks Jason,
The challenge for the first year students is to keep them
interested while learning the basics. The challenge for the
second year students is to get them to remember the basics. ;-)

Regards,
Doug

 

So what is the fear? bit by bit some companies rather wanting bare autocad

Yes. My current employer has but not on the CAD side. On the database side
of operations. A few years before I started here the brought into an program
for the IBM AS400 Mainframe for the customer information system (CIS) From
my understanding it was not as proficiency as the one being replaced. They
didn't know it until after they got it and started to some tasks or querying
for info. Then a few years later the "program co." said they were updating
the program if we wanted to upgrade it will cost $$$$$. Almost as much as
the program it's self. When my employer said NO they replied OK after this
date we will no longer support you. Now I'm for upgrades and keeping up to
date but a mainframe data system that you paid millions for should not need
to be upgraded every 3-4 years (codewise) at the same cost of the software.
On the CAD side, when AutoDesk brought out Gentry system and turned it into
GenMAP I looked at getting it but decided to wait and see how it develops.
It hasn't so we might of been bitten again if I went out and brought into
with out waiting. IMHO. Another case is on the software our field engineers
use but that's another story I'll wash my dirty laundry another day not
today.

Murph

 

I've had some of the "no customization" sentiment at an old job but I went
ahead and did it anyway. My boss wasn't tech savy so i think he had a bit
of fear for it but at the same time he also invested in a fair amount of
stuff. We used ADT 1 and when I left, we were on adt3.3 and i had done some
extensive customization to the system. Admittedly I was the only one who
really used ADT anywhere close to its potential.

My current employer is hard to put a finger on. The big boss refuses to
spend much in the way of computers and software. Most people here are using
less than exceptable machines, yet we've managed to do a quite a bit of
customization. I think it's mostly because the management again is not very
tech savy. Now by customization most of their stuff prior to my input was
menu stuff and scripts. only a handful of lisp.

I do have to wonder what will happen here after I leave. I've written some
fairly complex routines and as it stands right now, no one else here is at
the level i'm at. There are 3 or 4 who could figure it out but I haven't
seen much inclination for them to learn lisp like i have. I've seen
evidence of some prior customization that though the idea was right, was not
coded well. When that person left, much of that prior work was abandoned
because no one else knew how edit the code and keep it working with changes
to the system. I've put a lot of effort into documenting my stuff for future
use but without some effort from whoever "replaces" me, i believe my stuff
will be relagated to the junk pile once it doesn't do the changes they want.

cj

 

There are some IT idiots who think that lisp is programs that make the computer unstable or crash autocad more. It is
true that will a whole bunch of "stuff" being loaded that autocad can sometimes lead to being less stable. But this is
a tradeoff for more productivity sometimes. That being said I have had IT managers say my code was crashing autocad too
much. Then they tattletale to the owners and you get a negative view toward customization. That's one possible
negative view.

Another is where an employee starts programming all this stuff, loads it up and gets the employees hooked. Then that
employee leaves, leaving the employer and employees high and dry. I've seen it at my last 3 jobs, every time there was
protected code that would not run in the next version of autocad. Thus delaying the upgrade process. We can talk all
day about requiring source code and good programming practices, but company owners do not know anything about that and
they are the ones getting screwed by former employees. No wonder they do not want to become hopelessly hooked on one
employees way of doing things.


David

 

I’ve dealt with numerous vendor drawings and old drawings that didn’t have our current automation. You just have to use plain old ACAD and manual labor when working on them. Then if people complain about not being able use the custom software … then that money was well spent.

Something about programing autocad is fun. And when you get the bug you get all giddy about it. If someone really has a knack for programming they should be encouraged/exploited, but I’ve seen so many spend weeks screwing around with menus and buttons instead of doing their job. That may be a reason for management’s intolerance. And yea, a lot of high hopes end up as compromised flakeware. Seems like half the post here are about why a program doesn’t run in the latest acad release

If software is not simple, not logical, if its seems cryptic, or performs magic… it’s probably short lived. Don’t sacrifice control for automation.

 

Anyone who knows what they are doing can produce more with custom programs.
The problems happen when you try to get all levels of users using them.
The thing I run into at my place is people keep getting hired that are not ready for the powerful programs. The
managers say "just do it like so and so did.." and expect fast results. So I end up showing people stuff that they
never should be touching.

All in all though, just using the simple little tools save a huge amount of labor. Especially text editing of callouts
with numbers.

The real problem is owners usually have a core of trusted people that may or may not be educated to the cool tools
available. If you cannot get in on that club, you are on your own. You need to try hard to show that the tools you are
collecting and writing are immediately useful.

It was easy for me because the guys before me did make useful tools. So much so that some people did not know street
design as well as they needed to. When the last guy left with the code, they realized how critical it is.
Nice thing was the last guy wrote what I consider to be junky programs with tons of global variables, they were easy to
improve upon. He was a smart thinker though (for anyone who knows him...), just did not take the time to slick things
out.

If you ask me, dealing with the plotting is ten times harder to maintain than lisps and things.
Then Adesk starts playing with where the support files are and adds tool palettes, then you have a control mess if you
have a lot of users. It does take time to figure out how to run it.

I just wish Adesk would make future versions as updates to the current install, not new installs.

"Rudy Tovar" <>

James Maeding
jmaeding at hunsaker dot com
Civil Engineer/Programmer

 

Two points really stand out in what James said…
“The real problem is owners usually have a core of trusted people… “
In my experience, if you have 10 designers, 2 will really pick up programming and run with it. They may freely share their programs… or see them as special tools THEY paid for. If these programs give the creator a big advantage then they may become the bosses favorite for knocking out a job, or maybe for a raise. This can create “cad envy†and sooner or later someone’s going to ask the boss “do you want me to design or write programs to keep up with hot-shot?†If two kids are fighting over a toy, one option is to just take it away from them.

“just using the simple little tools save a huge amount of laborâ€
I bet James is not talking about trade specific tools, but general Acad enhancement. And whose fault is this??? How many people have spent hours trying to write the same program so they don’t have to key in 3 options to join lines into a polyline? How many tens of thousands have written the exact same line,tan,tan macro and made a button and lost the button when the mnu was recompiled and have to add it to each new release mnu… My personal peeve is there is no “midpoint of 2 picks†osnap. You can use ‘cal mee but that doesn’t work in lisp. So I wrote my own midpoint snap and special getpoint so it could be used inside a lisp. I use my special midpoint snap 200 times a day, everyone I gave my programs to uses it 200 times a day. Now if something changes in Acad and my program has to be rewritten, which happened from r14 to 2000, anyone who has become dependent is SOL. They could complain for years about what they USED to be able to do. I’m still not sure if Acads programmability is it’s biggest strength… or weakness.
BTW, I have never once used acad’s parallel osnap. Every release I check out the stuff I never use, to see if it’s changed. I can’t even find documentation on it.

 

I'm sure you're talking about the ordinary Joe that writes simple join and
glue functions for quick keys, but you'll find that James is a developer,
and doesn't play around with simple toys...I know James personally and his
software is as competitive as Autodesk's Land Desktop.

The main reason most of us hardcore programmers develop software... is so
that we can create real world software and not some patch that Ade.... put
together that fails in meeting the real world conditions.

As for the utilities being reserved for one individual...well James handles
a 200+ man office and develops everything for everyone to share... and this
in turn gives his boss the competitive advantage over the
competition...which in itself can be good if they value him...

As for those attempting to be developers or programmers that use
shortkeys...well....I guess to each his own...my comments were directed to
individuals that really try to go beyond....shortkeys are fine, but
parametric is much better...
--
MASi
Copyright 2004 by Cadentity
www.Cadentity.com
Autodesk
Authorized Developer

 

ok Rudy, your check is in the mail <g>.

I do the whole gamut of programs as real design is a mix.

I did not understand Diemaker (is that your name or an alias? just want to know who is talking...) Did you like what I
said or not?
It sounded like not.

I just think things happen in an office environment based on sometimes half baked reasoning. That does not mean the
conclusion to use customization or not is wrong, but the people trusted by a manager set the tone as to what a company
will feel comfortable accepting.

As for the little routines, wouldn't you rather have the ability to do macros and lisps than not have an API? I still
cannot imagine anyone thinking no customization is ever the best option (though it is an option like you said).
I'm open minded on this stuff as it is true our software is evolving fast.
thanks
James Maeding
jmaeding at hunsaker dot com
Civil Engineer/Programmer

 

I have no ideal what I said that might have been taken wrong. I quoted James because I agreed and expounded his points (I thought) with my own examples. The original question was “so what’s the fear� Playing devils advocate, I told of personal experience where the quest for productivity and office harmony clashed.
As far as my comment “And whose fault is this?†I was discretely taking a jab at adsk. Cause acad out of the box is for beginners and frustrating to make time with. I thought James “simple little tools†was referring to ALLLLLL the little macros EEEEEEVERYONE writes. And watching an employee debug a program when we’ve go a hot job can strike a little “fear†into the boss when the next schedule meeting comes.
Hey, I love programming, love watching an hour of work get compressed into 1 second. Love the look on someone’s face when they see a program for the first time. I’m lurking around here again after a 3 year hiatus because the handful of people who use my stuff still use 2000 waiting for me to update.
If you’re concerned about the future of individual developers… frankly, this isn’t the roaring nineties anymore. Computers and software have lost a lot of “wow†appeal. Every business I know has a closet full of obsolete computers and boxes of manuals for software that won’t run any more. Someone mentioned adsk going vertical, eventually the verticals will start to spread horizontal. You can’t stop it, I don’t know if anyone can keep up with it. I cried the day Vibrant Graphics died. VG was a terrific graphics accelerator made obsolete by acads own evolution. But I hardly miss VG’s great “birds eye view†now the mouse wheel zooms me anywhere with a flick of the finger. Maybe one day Acad will remove customization altogether to focus on flexible standards that fit everyone needs. After all, your programs probably satisfy specific industries needs, if only that industry would standardize around it. So far adsk has been a pretty “nice†company in an otherwise ugly mean world.
If you still don’t understand what I’m saying, well, about the only thing in the world truly understandable, predictable, logical… is programming.