Thomas wrote:
KeesW wrote:
Come on, Graphisoft, pull your finger out and really give us a first class product. Properly finance the fixing of long standing gripes before introducing yet another new feature that most users don't need. Listen to us, your users. Don't we have a say and don't we pay your wages?
KeesW, I guess you should direct your request to Vectorworks' and Archicad's common owner, Nemetschek AG. Graphisoft will do what they tell them to - or not to!
.....unfortunately, I don't believe ArchiCAD is that high on the list of development priorities and R & D resource disbursement, over at Nemetscheck HQ. If you compare the proposed revisions, updates and new features that they previewed for Vectorworks 2009 ( as well as the upgrades to VW20008), along with changes and improvements to other Nemetschek products (Allplan, Cinema 4D etc), you begin to wonder whether or not these products and subsidiary firms all fall under the same umbrella with ArchiCAD.
Either Graphisoft, and GS developers don't get nearly enough funds and resources from Nemetschek, or funds commensurate and comparable with their sister products, and relative to their comparable customer bases (ArchiCAD still has the larger customer base of them all), or the alternative - which is even worse to contemplate - is that ArchiCAD developers and project leads lack the requisite drive and necessary vision that their peers and co-developers at Nemetschek, as well as, over at their competitor rival product houses have, to keep this product competitive, useful andeven just relevant in 21st Century Design and Construction.
I much prefer to believe that the reason we still don't have a robust, versatile and proper functioning stair tool, or the reason we still have a painfully limited object library and library parts and doors and windows that are difficult to adapt to existing product lines, - nearly 3 versions after GS was bought out by Nemetscheck is because GS developers have been having a hard time getting the necessary resources and funds and prioritization from Nemtshcek HQ.
I much prefer to believe that; rather than to find out that the funds and resources have been available to them all along and that it was simply been a case of bad bad baaad strategy, planning, vision and implementation on the part of GS brass and developers. That they have instead felt it much wiser to spend more resources developing new features and tools that only a limited niche of their customer base use on a day-to-day basis (I''m looking right at you Curtain Wall tool) and which were never highly requested to begin with, at the expense of more urgent and long awaited fixes, upgrades and tools that EVERYONE uses and which EVERYONE would benefit from (Stair Tool stand up please; you too, Custom-Object-Creation Tool, complete with intuitive graphical/visual (read non-GDL programming or coding) interface. Oh wait, that one still doesn't exist yet.)
If you really want to gauge the ambition, enthusiasm and drive of any particular firm with regards to the future development of their products, just listen tohow they speak about their long-term plans and upcoming features. Compare the post linking the Vectoworks presentation previewing their product line up to 2011 when they expect to make it a fully BIM product, along with their general roadmap, to the yearly silent treatment we get from Graphisoft, over here - especially prior to new releases (and even after the actual releases).
That silence speaks volumes about where this product is headed.
........sorry for the long rant; some things just have to be said.
