random thoughts of late with no particular coherence...

actually..about things that are wrong with SW thinking...

Belief 1.Keeping up with the CAD Jones and making a marketing splash every 9 months is necessary for business sustainability and growth. Likewise is it important to build customer loyalty with clubs and conventions and pull in company friendly users and identities at street level to build trust, buzz and camaraderie.

Users will choose to use software that is widely used/supported, has a good tool set and delivers consistent quality for a reasonable price. They make a large commitment in training and equipment and aren't liable to stray away once committed even though they might drop off subscription. Most users are very well educated and make informed considered choices and don't need or want selling to. They want the facts good or bad.They want the whole picture not whats flattering or warm and fuzzy. They are all too aware that time is money and that looking after half finished software is costly and time consuming. While it is nice to get progressively improving capabilities just having it work and be consistent is actually more important. Living in fear of installing the next SP or waiting to see what happened to some other smuck is an indicator that the software is certainly not of a standard for professional use. Its a poor standard for no other reason than SW management have decided thats good enough -it has a seat belt so were not going to give you air bags...and besides no other company does so why would we.. No amount of feel good bonding sessions are going to offset the reality of ownership and negate obvious deficiencies.

Belief 2.Adopting non CAD solutions like MS office tool ribbons and picture style icons makes a better product and means the product is as cutting edge/modern as possible and also demonstrates a proactive adoption policy on the part of senior management.

Actually it means they have no ideas of their own or have lost the ability to distinguish what is actually important about the product now the company has grown into a mega monster of self conscious yes men.- Is a car for getting from A to B or is it for looking good in and traversing difficult terrain on the way to the mall? Isn't this what went wrong with the US car industry?..People caved to monthly turnover and protection of billion dollar investments and stopped making genuinely useful appliances.They spun dreams and excess until it was caught hollow by people who were willing to make what the customer wanted and actually needed and with a quality people sought out in preference.

Belief 3.The VAR network is an anachronism in the internet age.

Looking after the VAR network like a government social service is not addressing the real needs of users. Continuing to have local regional offices is costly and inefficient It makes it all too easy to deliberately do nothing about the fundamental problem of releasing buggy software as finished because it gives them continued work.The system works as it was concieved 10 years ago why would we change.. Having weak help notes feeds a revenue stream to VARs who would otherwise probably not eat out this week.

Belief 4.Striving for intuitive interaction with the program means more time spent dealing with the design itself particularly for surfacing tasks.

Reducing user functioning to Pavlov's dog level, and getting something to work in this instance or tha,t by trial and error, using all permutations of the the available buttons, means you can't actually be aware what it is you are able to do technically and why.If you cant think about the tools you use you aren't designing you are making up stuff that has the appearance of a design and hangs together....so I can light up a gas torch and make a hole in something eventually but is that by imitation and persistence or because I had a sound understanding of chemistry and safety! and I got that hole exactly round and right where I planned it.. Rather than direct,simple,clear,informed use of a tool made possible with empowering knowledge and a smart no frills UI you guess about it, read the tool tips and the error messages, get hunches about it because it looks similar to something else you used before (and think you know about), mess around with it on your day off to see when it doesn't work, discover something useful by accident or, if all else fails you realise you really ought to sign up to VAR classes because god dammit you're a dummy....

feel free to comment in any way that you feel challenged by my incoherence... remember being a good writer is not one of my lifes outstanding accomplishments :o)

Reply to
neilscad
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As with the analogy of the auto industry, you gotta wonder when no-frills (primitive looking, but robust as a milliright tool) CAD software will arrive from China/Korea/India, available over the internet at a fraction of swx prices. I remember when Hondas, Toyotas, and more recently Kia's seemed like cheap tinny cars, but they did the job and the rest is ...

Reply to
bill allemann

Wow Bill! Would that not be great!! Might even get it in the 99p or one dollar stores, lol

Reply to
pete

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