I was involved in commercial software development for over 10 years (I designed most of the SUPodium render engine for SketchUp) so I do have a little insight into how this stuff works.
There is a priority list, and there are teams of people that do stuff, and there is a roadmap. Stuff to do gets prioritised, and although it will often seem like it's not fixed for a long time (sometimes far too long) it's on a list.
There are lots of entirely fair reasons why stuff doesn't get done. Sometimes it just gets overlooked because someone thought someone else had done it.
It's tempting to look at software developers as a huge army of very clever and dedicated people that are spectacularly organised and experienced who work like a well-oiled machine 😊
Well, the reality is actually a lot less flattering!
There are separate teams of people responsible for different things. They are often specialists and don't tend to switch roles that often. When you have a complex object (cabinets are way more complex than they were) that needs to be modified, it's much, much quicker and easier to get the actual person that made it, to fix an issue. I designed the SUPodium Library and built most of the objects in it initially, so I know how that works too...
Typically it's one specific person, and like any other business, we get ill, go on holiday, and have relatives that have difficulties that take us out of the office or cause us to work less efficiently.
I identified some issues with the photovoltaic panel object, they ought to be a very quick fix, but it will (I hope) be on a priority list somewhere. Just because I feel it's urgent and quick, doesn't mean to say GS will 😊
It's easy to criticise (I often do) but with things like the kitchen units, the best thing to do is just keep reminding GS.
The biggest issues I think GS have for us, is a roadmap which doesn't seem to be going where we want, and stopping off at the places we want en route.
That's a whole series of management decisions that we, as customers can take issue with.
This it least the third time I've criticised the AI visualisation tool. No practising architect would have proposed wasting time and money adding that. It was pure marketing theatre to say something like 'Archicad now leverages AI'.
It's purely a front end and some connections for a text to image generator with some loaded prompts.
For me, fixing the photovoltaic panel object parameters, and making it able to calculate the approximate output from the size of the object, and making it schedulable is far, far more valuable in terms of helping sustainable design at an early stage, and it should take half a day to fix. It actually adds new functionality in an increasingly valuable area.
I fixed (botched - because I'm a GDL idiot) it in around a day, so it's not hard. It's not a substitute for a competent fix, but I think it's a constructive point to make.
Archicad 27 UKI | OS X 12.7.1 Monterey
