A book on ARX, would it still have a market?

[oransen]

I've become a registered Autodesk developer (again)  to write a book on programming Inventor. But I notice that the ARX group is still active. Would a new version of my ARX book and course still have a market as well?

See here: ARX book (end of page) for the old book and old course

[owenwengerd]

I'm sure there is interest; I'm not so sure the potential customers are willing to pay.

[oransen]

You think there is already too much available free?

[owenwengerd]

I wouldn't necessarily characterize it that way; more like many new ARX programmers are from developing countries with different expectations than the traditional commercial application developer.

[NikolayPoleshchuk]

Yes, there is still some market for ARX but not big. In 2006 I wrote a general book on AutoCAD programming including ARX and it is being sold up to now but very slowly.

See http://www.private.peterlink.ru/poleshchuk/cad/2006/Razr2006e.htm

[oransen]

I think a Russian language book would have about a 1% market share compared with a English language book (whihc would have world wide appeal).

But I take the point, I think I'll concentrate on the Inventor programming book before I go back to ARX!

[jaboone]

I would be interested, if it were vb and written for VBExpress 2010 version.

[oransen]

ARX is above all a C++ API for AutoCAD, no VB I'm afraid (unless things have changed hugely since I last looked)

[jaboone]

I think this is actually 2013-4 ARX, but is loaded with vb examples.  Point being, there should be more.  Its only very basic stuff.

I nned to graduate to selection and finding all attribute data very quickly since I have some time to work on that sort of thing for a while.

[oransen]

I should maybe have titled my post "ObjectARX in C++". I won't be doing any books on Visual Basic I'm afraid.

[owenwengerd]

ObjectARX is a C++ API. VB and C# use the managed .NET API.

[oransen]

I think the confusion is because the VB examples are under a directory Object ARX/Samples/dotNet (see the image attached to jaboon's post). So it looks like VB is part of ObjectARX.

It's more than 10 years since I wrote the Object ARX book, hence my hesistant fluffy replies!

[Alexander.Rivilis]

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@oransen wrote:

I think the confusion is because the VB examples are under a directory Object ARX/Samples/dotNet...

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Hi, Owen!

I think the confusion is because stable name "AutoCAD .NET API" appeared after a few years, when it was called "ObjectARX .NET" and there was not separate branch for "AutoCAD .NET API" on this forum.

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@oransen wrote:

I think a Russian language book would have about a 1% market share compared with a English language book (whihc would have world wide appeal).

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Oh! I think you're very wrong. Of course Russian language is not common as English or Chinese, but ...

[oransen]

I suppose ARX has moved on a lot in the last 10 years when I wasn't looking!

"Oh! I think you're very wrong. Of course Russian language is not common as English or Chinese, but ..."

I sold more than 3000 copies of my old ARX book. If I'd done it in Russian I'd be lucky to have sold 30. English has worldwide appeal.

[Alexander.Rivilis]

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oransen wrote:

...I sold more than 3000 copies of my old ARX book. If I'd done it in Russian I'd be lucky to have sold 30...

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And again, IMHO you're wrong. If interested, ask NikolayPoleshchuk.

I do not know exactly, but sold copies of his book at least 3000. The essential difference - the cost of books in Russia was several times lower than in the U.S.A. or Europe.

Of course, if you're selling a book on programming using ObjectARX for Russian in the U.S., it is unlikely that you will sell more than 30 pieces

[cadproman]

I would certainly buy one, just for any new examples. I have the only two (that I know of) written in English and both of them are for 2000 or older. It took me forever to even get started learning it because the examples in the books would not even compile anymore with current versions of AutoCAD. Someone needs to write a current book with both entry level and moderate content, and it wouldn't hurt to add a little about C++ in general for those of us who programmed in VBA exclusively prior to AutoCAD 2010. I'm very grateful to those on this forum who have answered every one of my questions and kept me from staying stuck. Because it doesn't come with examples as the VBA version did, I don't seem to have much luck with the documentation.

Please write the book!

[oransen]

I'd be tempted if I could see a big market. Currently I'm concentrating on an Inventor programming book...

[NikolayPoleshchuk]

I sold 2400 copies of book in Russian for 6 years (of 3000 printed). ObjectARX was part of it.

[oransen]

That is a good amount of books! I wish I'd had sold that many in just one country. Mine only covered C++ though, which may have account for the relatively less worldwide sales.

[GaryElswick5627]

Owen,

A book on "Professional" level arx is sorely needed. As evidenced by too many questions here a book(s) on what is really needed to program arx, i.e.: knowledge and mastery of C++, Windows programming, MFC, WPF, algorithms, computational geometry, templates, DLL's, exception handling, native code vs. managed code, data structures, etc. My opinion is that to many people here have done the "My first plug in" and read how to write a simple Class example and then are in way over their head when trying to write arx code.

There is a HUGE step between:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()

{

cout << "Hello World";

cout << \n;

}

and knowing what ALL of the details and implications of this BASIC arx code fragment are:

LSRVEditorReactor::LSRVEditorReactor (const bool autoInitAndRelease) : AcApProfileManagerReactor(), mbAutoInitAndRelease(autoInitAndRelease) {
 if ( autoInitAndRelease ) {
  if ( acProfileManagerPtr () )
   acProfileManagerPtr ()->addReactor (this) ;
  else
   mbAutoInitAndRelease =false ;
 }
}

Hundreds of  hours of WRITING (not just reading example) C++ Windows code is required to approach a professional level. TT has had TOO much patience in my opinion in many cases where for example the question is why won't my code work but they do not know say whether they are writing  managed code or native C++.  

Obviously no one book could cover all the above in necessary detail but you could surely pick the subset(s) of the subjects enumerated above.

I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes here but I think that to many wannabe programmers have not done the necessary training and research before asking a question.