How to Answer Them?

When I went to the roll-out, they said SW Corp had to improve on quality, making it a point that they could no longer introduce software versions that had bugs. They said even 90% success was not good enough. I think SW Corp has paid more attention to the "bug" issue with this release. There are still a few around, but nothing looks mission critical from my perspective.

Your co-workers have a point. You shouldn't jump in with both feet on blind faith, especially in a production environment. Where I work, those of us in Product Development get the new versions of software first. We run it in parallel with the older version, basically running controlled experiments with the software to try to detect anything "bad". In the mean time, Production Engineering continues on with the existing software. Once the new version of software had been tested for at least a month, and if it gets the approval of Product Development, the rest of Engineering gets upgraded.

If there are new features in SW04 that you know will help to reduce wasted time and make your department more productive, then you should try to upgrade in the fastest and safest manner possible. If you DON'T see any improvements that will help out your productivity, then it is always a good idea to sit back and keep watching this news group for any warning indicators of the software. Upgrade when you feel confident there are no existing bugs that will adversely affect your productivity.

I'd say that they're being prudent. Unless there is some compelling new feature that is required to do your project, using SP0 of anything is just asking for trouble.

even a cursory reading of this newsgroup points out the inaccuracy of that statement. In SW's defense, I will say that they appear to have done a better job w/ 2004 than they did with 2001+ and 2003--there are definitely far fewer cries of pain to be heard on the newsgroup. That's not to say, however, that there haven't been any.

Still--personally I got burned relatively badly by both 01+ and 03, and am reluctant to jump into 04 on faith. At least for me, there are no sufficiently compelling features that I need to jump in early.

details snipped.........

I'd agree with your typical co-worker's comment.

There may be improvements in productivity with the new release, but that has to be balanced against the loss of productivity if a serious bug is found. If you convert your data and keep a SW2003 backup, you can revert to 2003, but what about new work done in SW2004? It is effectively lost until the supposed bug is fixed.

I run a one man shop, and I like to play with new releases. But I don't do production work until the new release has established a track record.

Art W.

yeah, right. give good ol' bob z. some specifics. bob z. doubts that

bob z. would tell them, "quit being a whiney, crybaby Luddite and get back to work! you will upgrade when i tell you to upgrade and you will like it!!!"

what if Christopher Columbus decided it was too scary to explore something new?

Thanks bob z. I seem to learn something new every time you post (and it's been far too rare these days).

Navy Diver wrote on 19.9.2003 15:20

Well, I jumped on 2004 (after being part of the beta process) and I love it (as I love my cactus... Carefully).

It certainly is not without problems, but so far none have lost work, only lost time. For my small business I a willing to make the trade for now.

However, if I were in your position with a large bunch of users, I would wait for SP1. There are, in fact, a list of SPs that are are being fixed for SP1 ­ so there are issues.

I think the big difference is that unlike 2001 and 2003, you will not need to wait for SP3 before it is usable. I think 2004 has benefited significantly from the beta process, and I think SW learned a lot by trusting the user base for this feedback. Hopefully this will be the process they use in the future. I prefer to have a new release that is usable when it is released rather than 1 year later just when the next one is released...

I normally do not play safe with new versions, but in your shoes, I would wait 1 SP and look again.

And- I think your users will also be happy when they get their hands on it. :-)

Daniel

bob z. must first apologize to the original poster for 'highjacking' his thread. sorry!

Richard, yeah, good ol' bob z. has been busy at work and has started a new hobby (just a little hint: bob z. takes a specific gravity reading before, during and after). this new hobby has bob z. spending a little time in another newsgroup, but bob z. can not leave the group that started it all!

bob z. did the solidworks beta program. bob z. figured he wouldn't have any room to complain if they offered a free ride on the train. seriously, why would complain about the war in iraq and you did not vote for president!?!? bob z. can not believe the stuff that is going on in 2004. swx is kickin ass. bob z. has told a few of his co-workers that this release of swx is big, very big. much bigger than anything in the past. bob z. now has to figure out how to convince his boss and the IT genius (bob z. uses the word 'genius' in the most sarcastic manner possible) that swx2004 is a MUST HAVE.

thanks, Mr. Doyle for all of your kind words in the past and present.

bob z.

ok--you caught me bob z. I was just making it all up out of fear of progress. Every minute of the last two releases has been pure bliss.

I'll try to think of some bleeding edge technology I can purchase as penance for my sins....

see, bob z. knew this!!! :~)>

bob z. can read minds long-distance!

For some of us, the chance to use the new functionality is much too appealling verses having to wait for problems to crop up, especially after having used it for 2+ months now beta testing for SW. It went through 2 beta cycles and 2 pre-release cycles. The only difference is that this release was the first release where SW made the beta's available to the user base. In the past, only resellers and developers have had access to the two beta releases. Then, they would make pre-release1 available to subscription customers. I can't remember a release that didn't go through 2 and sometimes 3 pre-release cycles. Their thinking this year was that if they made the beta available to the user base and had a contest to find the most bugs, they would get more valuable QA done on the product. I think it was a good idea overall, other than, there is now a perception out there that the product has gone through 4 beta cycles, which makes some people uneasy for some reason. As for reasons to upgrade: if a person is concerned there are bugs in SP0 and hesitant to upgrade, let me dispell the fear with this fact: there ARE bugs in SP0. There will be bugs in SP1. There will be bugs in SolidWorks 2012, as well, when it ships. Are there critical bugs? I don't think so, because usually when something globally catastrophic is detected, a version x.1 service pack is issued immediately. SP0 has been available now for 2 weeks and no emergency service pack has come out. I believe that in general, the software is moving ahead, not backward, so I would be assured that 2004 provides more enhancements, and fixes more existing known problems than it creates; myself personally having

There may be improvements in productivity with the new release, but that has to be balanced against the loss of productivity if a serious bug is found. If you convert your data and keep a SW2003 backup, you can revert to

One has to make a decision if the new features are really productive and how will they be used. Some features we use everyday and will have more of an impact on productivity. Other new features get used on rare occasions and have little impact on overall productivity.

Re-training every new release is lost productivity as well as all the baggage that goes along with each new release. I have experienced what

Having to learn a new release once a year is a big deal and takes time. Users make errors learning the new release and this makes it difficult to differentiate between software and user errors when everyone is trying their best to get the work out the door on time and correctly.

Kman

very well said. all of it. bob z. just snipped away some just for bandwidth reasons. there is no reason to wait for sp1.0 with this version of solidworks. no reason whatsoever.

swx2004 has a feature that will save bob z.'s company TONS -O- MONEY. a fully parametric hole chart. can you say 'un-holy pure wanton desire'? oh yes, this is how bad bob z. needed a parametric hole chart. this thing will save time and money. can you believe it? time and money together! honestly! they are back together again after all these years!

I sure have to agree with Mr Bob (Zee)....what if Columbus was afraid of new challenges. I'm well aware about the fact that some users can't afford to use bugged versions, but if no one try out the new verions they will never get unbugged. If everyone was waiting for Sp4...it sure would include as many bugs as Sp0. So the question is...who's gonna try it out....and who's gonna look like the fool who did it. I've been one of those brave guys so far , but this year I simply didn't have the time....I tried to participate in the beta programe...but never really got the time. So far I've had a brief look at the SW 2004 and it looks really good to me. A lot of new timesaving features.

Krister

Navy Diver skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com ...

I WILL!!!

Richard

ME TOO

Krister

Richard Doyle skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:bkfnqb$1bc2l$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-182008.news.uni-berlin.de...

Here's my nickels worth...

Being on the BETA team (whatever you call it), I think this release is great. Bugs? Sure, there are bugs. What software has no bugs? Don't reply with any M$ products, because they all have a nagging issue to somebody...

I was burned somewhat badly with 2001-plus, so the hesitation was there on

And here is my biggest thinker, if everybody is "told" or "cautioned" to wait for awhile, who IS left to test it live? If everyone on this NG waits, then are we going to all see a message from someone new that says it is okay now, or just wait for SW to release sp1.0?

If we all wait for SP1.0, then if I were SW, I would release SP1.0 on the CD they are going to send everyone. Problem solved ehh?

Have a day,

Mr. Pickles

bob zee quipped:

my 2001+ spontaneously combsted in my hand.

so there.

I got burned by 01+.

-nick e.