2004 SP2 is up...

Mr. "armadillo hunter",

I agree with a great deal of what you say. Many people come here to "vent" because they feel it is in vogue to do so. I think that maybe they get some weird kick out of doing so and often have little to contribute to the group. Their time would be better spent sending in SPRs and often times the problem is due to their lack of experience. The abundance of these types of rants detracts from the usefulness of the group and makes it a less welcome place to visit for users who simply come here for information and to further their skills.

BUT, Mr. Wilson does not fall into the above category by any means. He is consistently one of the most skillful and generous contributors to this forum, one of the best at finding and disseminating workarounds, and one of the most tolerant of the software's flaws. When he is pushed to the breaking point, I believe it is for a good reason. That is to say, you've picked the wrong target for your post.

JJ

Dear Santa,

For my present,... could you please return the JB person back to whatever planet (I think it's called planet USHM, where only small job shops using TI calculators and only Demo software exist?) he came from?

Oh, btw, you've got 4 days so, chop-chop!!

p.s., no milk and cookies if you do not succeed.

.. ;^)

Sorry, they dont have time. Theyre fixing all 374 of mine first ;oP

By "alternative solutions", do you mean your suggestions that you were going to try to publicly shame Solidworks by writing articles for an ezine? Or do you mean the "class action" lawsuit? Or is it your post about the nurses that suggests that SW is maliciously withholding bug fixes? Certainly you can't be serious about any of this.

Join the club. You are not being singled out.

I have a hard time believing this. Do you mean paying projects? Anyone who has a professional reputation to uphold finishes projects that they start come hell or high water. What did you do, just explain to your customer that you made a bad choice of software and wouldnt be able to finish the project until some unspecified time in the future? Or are you talking about a personal project?

What people are failing to recognize is that success or failure is not tied to whether Company X fixes bug Z or not. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with software. Your success is dependent on your choices. If you choose to use a tool that cant cut it, well, as they say in the commercial about automated toll booths "that means something".

To be fair, didn't this technique exploit a backdoor quirk about PW, where it was kind of a bug in PW that allowed that to happen in the first place, but you made use of it to do something that shouldnt have been possible? I know you have made a career of using back doors, but its hardly documented functionality. They didn't actually give you an spr for that, did they?

Honestly, what system would you not criticize? Of course they have to prioritize things. You would probably want this to go to a vote where your brand of "activism" could compete.

Another problem that people arent talking about is the fact that there are so many conflicting solutions that individual people want. Some people don't like the new transparent flyout FM that auto-expands, but I love it. I don't like the Command Manager, but other people do. In the same way, for some bugs there are multiple ways to fix it, which some people would consider worse than the bug itself and others would find perfect.

The lesson that some people will not learn in their entire life is that life is neither perfect nor fair. You can waste your whole life fighting that fact, but in the end you will change nothing. The real question is how do you make use of this information. If you just go around feeling conspired against, and acting like a little child that doesnt get his way, well, youve missed a lot of opportunities. It is a hard pill to swallow, but there are things that you just cannot change, and beaureaucracy, corporate or governmental is one of them.

Instead of wasting your energy fighting things that you cannot change, why not do something productive? Pick your battles more selectively. You strike me as the Don Quixote type, happier the more hopeless the cause.

Maybe focus on completing jobs that you start? Or how about talk to the regional SW direct technical guy in your area? I know you feel ripped off if there is not some back door for you to exploit, but honestly, flapping about a lawsuit or trying to get slander published are pretty distasteful ventures, not to mention unrealistic.

You still work for the VAR, then, it seems. ...

You missed your calling, should have been an abortion activist.

Oh god, spare us. The "amigos" was a pointless exercize of the same stripe. No benefit - hold it, I think Mark got a t-shirt?

Its genuinely funny that youre trying to foment this image of yourself as an unappreciated martyr, and SolidWorks as a bunch of conspirators. Why dont you explain the "big picture" to those of us with less inventive imaginations? Try to do it without using the words "Kennedy", "UFO", "Area 51", "Roswell" or "Watergate".

It seems you have a few supporters that dont want to believe that you are capable of anything distasteful. Although I appreciate some of the technical stuff you have posted, some of your "commentary" posts appear to be little short of "rabble-rousing".

Stick to modeling, Mike, youre on surer ground there.

Armadillo Hunter

You hide behind a hotmail alias and then call us whiners? Why do you expect us to take you seriously? Yeah, we get angry and criticize. I need to be better about complaining to my VAR and turning in SPRs. But it was an angry posting on this group that got the subscription boycott started, and that got SW's attention for at least a little while, resulting in slightly better testing and code. I think we need to get their attention again.

You make a number of valid points. I hope you stick around. But calling Mike Wilson and Eddy Hicks whiners is patently ridiculous.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems

Dear Santa,

Thanks for granting my wish early even though I'm not Christian. It's been fun watching this putz get wasted and blown out over on alt.machines.cnc

For this kind of special laugh I'm truly grateful. :>)

Keep it up and perhaps I'll convert someday ! ;>)

jon

A.H.:

Your sentiments are noble, and possibly correct, but using the same ideas you write about, it could be argued that your little campaign to clean up the neighborhood will fail for the same reasons that the habitual complainers will also fail to change anything at SW corp. You can't change human nature. You're not going to fix world hunger, shut up Jon Banquer or keep people from making fools of themselves on usenet.

Also, I'm not clear what advantages there are in accusing specific individuals.

But good luck anyway.

matt

Try calling it a Hanukkah bush this year. Perhaps with divine intervention you might finally get lucky... but only if you pay her. ;>)

jon

WTF!?.. So,.. god is a hooker!?

What type of bush are you consuming at those pre-Kwanza demo parties!?

..

j>

Well, I've said what I dropped in to say. Just a few parting thoughts. You all are pretty tough when it it comes to doling out the criticism, but it seems you don't like to take it nearly as well. Just stop and think about it for a second next time you have the urge to write a scathing flaming post, and ask yourself who its helping. Flaming when there is no chance of retaliation or being set straight is a cowards game. I'm not defending SW company or software, that's not the issue. I'm questioning a few individuals techniques which make this place an unpleasant one fairly frequently.

Anyway, I will probably continue to lurk to see if things improve at all, and if not, I will take my own advice and act instead of complain. Ill likely wind up using this as a search resource instead of coming daily to read posts.

So long.

Armadillo Hunter

Who has flamed you and given you no chance of retaliation or setting them straight? I'm confused. You've got every opportunity to talk. We all do. Remember, public newsgroup.

You came in here, nailed a few of us with BS comments and *extremely* offensive remarks and some of us called you on it.

Please, go away. Or stay if you prefer. It's a free country in here.

- Eddy

I really don't see why this is such a frequently unpleasant place for you when you only lurk to read/use the resource and no one knows you are there.... you don't want to post anything yourself- why do you expect this NG to continuously generate Pulitzer prize content for your edification? I am sorry mate but you haven't really helped yourself by piping up to be insulting of others. this group exists for anyone interested in SW whatever their age, competence and disposition. I wouldn't like to see it become so pc that no one has any personality or character. cheers, have a nice xmas neil

by the way how is Berlin at this time of year - you have no university studies to keep your mind busy now?

It can never hurt to blame jb . Not knowing the subject he can hardly complain.

Probably one of his later name-calling rants. I don't even know what he posts there as he seems to know almost nothing about actual machines, machining or CAD/CAM.

I suspect his nose is bothering him again .

"Anyone with initials "JB" were disqualified from having an opinion)"

SolidWorks! SolidWorks! RAH! RAH! RAH!

Mr. Know-it-all-i'm-perfect-and-am-better-than-anybody-else-armidillo-f-er,

Your insults towards some of the most highly recognized SolidWorks experts in the world have just now labeled you an official asshole. Good luck in getting SolidWorks to fix those SPRs cause your not going to get any help here. But, then again, your most high, I guess receeding from this lowly newsgroup is in your best interests anyway.

I would like to give you a sincere thanks for straightening us all out on just accepting the bugs and spending hours on helping SolidWorks with fixing their software, while paying them to do so, just to have our SPR's thrown away into cyberspace somewhere. Your great wisdom has made me change my ways and I will no longer bitch about how their issues with memory management do not allow me to complete my large assembly drawings and just accept that I have to cut and paste screen captures onto the drawing sheet. I hope you don't mind that from now on when I have a problem I will contact you directly because you can give me the best guidance on how to work around it than anyone else in the world can.

You humble servant, Lowly SolidWorks bithcing idiot that doesn't know how to work around bugs, Jeff

BTW-You should apply at SolidWorks as a consultant or better yet, CEO. All of us here at the NG would be greatly appreciative to have someone with your expert knowledge leading the development of their software. Just think about it gang: Mr. Perfect putting in more bugs just so we can figure out workarounds and be happy. Man, I really can't wait! Can you raise subscription costs too? All those extra bugs are really gonna cost SolidWorks some money.

Did all of the dimensions that changed have the "use documents precision" turned off?

Were these dimensions where you keyed in a specific value, like .125, or were they dims where you just drew a line and accepted whatever dimension it came out to be such that the display was 8 digits when you dbl clicked the dim?

Were they driving or driven dimensions, meaning model items or created in the drw?

If you did it another (easier) way (using SW Explorer), do you get the same result?

I haven't seen this problem before, but these questions are where I would start looking for an answer.

matt

I think he's our ex-governor Gray Davis. Sounds just like him. Don't make me have to send the "Governator" to SolidWorks headquarters now! I'd hate to see SolidWorks get recalled, but it would be nice to get the Gray out.

Yeah, we Cuhlifornians are a crazy bunch all-right.

Mike

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Again, "physician, heal thyself". You gave us all some good advice in an obnoxious way. People reacted to your manner more than your words, and now your pants are all in a bunch.

Good advice. We should listen to you. Perhaps you should have listened to yourself.

Absolutely. So, what's your name? What's your company's name?

And you don't seem to be able to see how your posts were a little unpleasant? Heard the story about the pot calling the kettle black?

If you would take the chip off your shoulder you could probably make some good inputs here. Too bad you're slinking off before we can all work it out.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems

Jerry:

I want to be careful not to aim any of this at you. You are one of the more moderate folks here, but I do think you try to act as a collective conscience sometimes and wind up defending the wrong people from time to time, like this time.

I think some people have not understood my meaning properly. To say it more directly: It is easy to throw punches at Solidworks when you know no one from Solidworks is going to defend the company or the product. I was not talking about people attacking me, I really couldnt care less.

Well, yes. They were unpleasant to write. Im not making a career of this. Im here, I said my peace and now if you will permit, Im going to leave.

Who thinks Banquer has ever added anything positive to this group? Several folks here smell a lot like Banquer sometimes, or a little like him all the time.

All these people seem to acheive is ridicule (of SW, of people, whatever), and I cant see anything positive coming of that. I dont think a rational argument can be made that ridicule brings positive changes.

Here I had written a few things that were true but you would consider them inflammatory and insulting, so Ill leave it out. I dont believe there is anything to work out, and I have no interest in contributing here if the atmosphere is controlled by the "militant ridicule brigade". Im not slinking off, Im just leaving, a bit disgusted.

Since you seem obcessed with this, I am Howard Hobart and work in a 3 man design firm near Elk City, Oklahoma. Do you want to visit for tea?

There is something I want to state explicitly for those who had problems understanding it earlier:

I have never defended the software, so all of this cheerleader, Solidworks shill nonsense belongs to someone elses imagination. Nothing I posted was about the software at all. It is all about people whose default self esteem mechanism comes from ridiculing whatever presents itself in a public place.

Armadillo Hunter

or, if you prefer,

Howard Hobart