Hire experienced detailers to be developers

[acbsdesign]

I wish there was a magic stick to be used for real Advance Steel users to be part of the development team.

[acbsdesign]

@bukko,

The best post I have ever seen.

Well said.

Ilko Dimitrov

P.S. Admin-you can delete this one too, everybody already knows what we are talking about.

I think we had enough.

[abs30116 · Accepted solution]

Hold on everyone, take a breath.  Let's all remember that this program, Advance steel, was originally written by Graitec to work in AutoCad.  AutoDesk purchased this buggy and not uniformly written program and is having to go behind others to fix what had been done.  That will take time.  We all know how it is to go behind someone else and fix their mistakes.

I wish ALL software companies would stop for a while with new features and only work on fixing the things that don't work or don't work well in their software.  That would be a better new release to me than new features.  A lot of the problem is the fact you have different programmers and they each have their own way of thinking.  That is why different connections have different ways to accomplish similar tasks and ruins the continuity of the program.  Some connection automatically select an object when you click it and some you have to hit enter after you click the object, as a basic example.

I do believe AutoDesk would benefit greatly if they got a few detailers from each country to go through each and every aspect of the program and provide notes on how things work or don't work.  They would get a broader view and a users perspective on the use of the program.  I don't know how feasible that is, but it is just an opinion.

Some of you have mentioned other steel software, but in my opinion they do not have the flexibility that Advance Steel does.  I have yet to find anything I can't model and get a detail produced with it.  I don't have to bother Tech support to write a macro for me or pay them to write one for me or involve anyone else with a special circumstance.  I can use the tools of Advance Steel or AutoCad to accomplish anything.

[acbsdesign]

It is not all Graitec's fault.

Currently what we withes is a total luck of willingness to address the issues on a first place.

Even statements such as: We do not have this problem , it is only yours, ... how lousy this can be, for a manager of developers to behave as a high school boy.

No excuses with Graitec, there were smart enough to make a software good to be sold, now the ball is in other's yard, let's forget about what Graitec did, and look what we have now.

Make the software stable first, and after that make upgrades, not the opposite.

The way Autodesk handles the issues is a very, very lousy way.

I.D.

[bukko · Accepted solution]

I agree as far as the flexibility of Advance Steel as this point in time. 

That is the major reason I do not to give up hope that the bugs will be fixed. I want to continue using the software.

Like  you.... I can create pretty much create anything with this software and it is easy to do.  I have lots of  exposure to other parametric modeling programs (solid edge, solidworks etc.) and Advance Steel does very well with downline updates, copying, etc. They have a real winner as far as modeling goes.  

I would be nice if Autodesk would give us some kind of a roadmap to what is going to be done to fix these issues in the near future.

There are no clear signals from Autodesk on the path they are taking as far as fixes. 

As far as updates go.... it's  the usual Autodesk strategy..... "give the users a couple of new minor features and slap a new year title onto the program...milk it for everything you can"

It appears that they are waffling in the wind at this point. The "updates" are not fixing any major longstanding bugs.

If the SQL database switch for the program is part of the path for fixing the longstanding bugs then let the users know what the path and timeline is for fixing the bugs that we all complain about.

After taking a breath we are still in the same place with only Autodesk's past performance with Advance Steel as an indicator of what will happen in the future with the program. 

That is not a good sign IMO.  I think most serious detailers in here are not thrilled about waiting 3-5yrs for the major fixes.

Tekla and SDS2 have the basics worked out.

Advance Steel's advantage with modeling and extra configurability will be erased by Tekla fairly soon (ex.Direct Modification, Tekla's Detail Manager w/new camera type objects just as a start) 

Advance Steel's dev team needs to get in gear to be competitive.  Riding on Revit's coat tails will not reduce the number of Tekla seats if they keep doing what they are doing.

Regards

Craig

[dgorsman]

---

@abs30116 wrote:

I do believe AutoDesk would benefit greatly if they got a few detailers from each country to go through each and every aspect of the program and provide notes on how things work or don't work.  They would get a broader view and a users perspective on the use of the program.  I don't know how feasible that is, but it is just an opinion.

---

That's not a bad idea, provided that they can get around any "No, MY way is right!" users.  I'm sure we've all worked with at least one of those at some point - people who refuse to accept anything other than their own terms.  Otherwise it turns from "Advance Steel" to "[Usernamehere] Steel" and that trades one set of problems for another.

[acbsdesign]

---

@Drawtech wrote:

The top of the team need to be from a robust steel detailing background.

If they employ programmers, sales guys, general "CAD experts", draftsmen or managers from other disciplines, graduates or even experienced structural engineers, none of these have sufficient knowledge and experience of STEEL DETAILING to lead the development.

...unless these same people have also worked at the sharp end as STEEL DETAILERS for many years. 🙂

Considering the current state of the software and the length of time it has been in development, this is not happening.

...so I would agree with Ilko on his post. 🙂

---

Any news having steel detailer on top of the Management of the steel detailing software called "Advance steel"?

Or we are going in circles all over again and again.

Dear Autodesk,

COULD YOU PLEASE GET ON BOARD MANAGEMENT WHO CARES AND WHO IS ACTUALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE.

Steel detailing is not space science after all. 

THANK YOU.

[SanjoyNath]

Dear Experts,

We have tested in our company both ways

Detailers and Engineers who turned into developers performed well

Too good developers take tooooo longer time to understand the detailers problems and dig too deep into database normalizations and to the abstractions layers so deep that never occur in detailing use cases

Trained computer scientists Developers make things good for memory managements and security things and take too long to understand use cases of steel or concrete detailing systems with geometry related heuristics

[SanjoyNath]

Dear Experts,

We who came to use Advance Steel are mainly from 15 to 20 years of CAD experience and we were very happy with lsip facilities , vba , scr things then csharp

But due to some reasons of over optimizations/normalizations on databases (First bad habit of hardcore software developers) and too much data blobbing we can see that Advance Steel Components Window opening times are slowest among all other softwares.

Moreover recording facility of macros (open source notepad files of .cs) alone generated thousands of fresh ideas and ready made roadsmaps from users to developers in other softwares. When users records macro and send that to developer companies regarding their requirements , then roadsmaps become more clear with more formal ready made codes from the users sides which actually help everyone to come into same page of understanding of work flows.

Atleast lisp facilities help to communicate (users to developers stepwise)

Look Autocad was **** hit because of these facilities of scripting.

Advance Steel hides everything from user and to hide objects models they calls sql server then calls sqllite then decrypts blob columns then opens the component windows

I dont know why Autodesk thinks not to give record c sharp macro facilities (normally these come to mind when software providers want to hide the objects model) 

[muleman1 · Accepted solution]

@Sebastian_Eiche I don't think @acbsdesign  intends to be disrespectable or rude to developers. He doesn't strike me as a rude guy.....

I think the devs have created and maintain an incredible program in AS. However,  I think AS could be taken to a much higher level of user friendliness if there were some real world, experienced detailers added to the dev team. 

What the program lacks is someone with experience introducing their skills and experience to the devs who can translate those skills and experience into the program.

This is my opinion, for what its worth,

[ArjunGaba · Accepted solution]

@acbsdesign  I totally agree with you as Advanced steel is detailing software Well Only experienced detailer knows the problem faced while working on advanced steel where it lags compare to other tools like sds ,tekla and bocad 

Tekla drums up the business using experienced detailer as developer . Although advanced steel is good in fast modeling as compared to tekla but it lags in following points

1.time loss while editing drawings (can be cloned)

2. revision making process 

3.drawing detail and bill updation process 

4. Still waiting for fabtrol/fabsuite file 

5.  can't create customized kss file

Maximum clients requires xml files for fabsuite but advanced steel doesn't provide ..

their is huge pain area while working with advanced steel at detailing end

[ArjunGaba]

@Sebastian_Eiche   Developer are always respected . Developer knows everything but what to implement depends upon market demand while no one better knows than detailer what is requires in market developer always remain on the top and detailer remains at bottom . I don't know how As connect both to achieve best. But current situation we are loosing clients since Tekla acquires fabsuite . Client needs xml files . As is having tough competition with tekla. As advanced steel made by advance purchase by graitec than acquired by Autodesk.

In a simple words a building is imagination of architect , designed by structure engineer executed by G.C 

[acbsdesign]

@muleman1 

Thank you 

This thread started after I saw stability issues posted in Idea Station were put in archives due to “not enough votes”

 I called an executive here in The USA and he said, he was told all issues are fixed. So someone reported in a sneaky way bad bad lies, I recall I was boarding a plane then to a crooked county where lies are told maybe as often as having a shot of espresso. And since I stand behind the truth and having a family to support I needed to raise a voice about what is going on.

Stability is ok now. 
Functionality needs improvement, kss export for example. Development responded kss export is done per D...standards, simple question is, would many users bother asking for kss export to be fixed if everything was ok?

So something is wrong in the kitchen, mentality, experience, lack of qualified leadership or all of the above.

DM needs improvement too. Kss was just an example.

I was threatened my account will be suspended, ok, do it, an user less is a license less.

Mathematically.
In reality it is much more.

Rant over, it’s Monday, back to work.

[SanjoyNath]

Dear Experts,

  We develop Addons and deploy these with addons Folders and xml files

Cant we develop Addins?

Some problems and exceptions occur from the

ASRepository.dll

ASRepositoryProxy.dll

AutoConnectionConfig.dll

DscODBC.dll

When we try to develop and deploy Addins. Please give some stepwise guidances for these such that we can develop our own Addins to handle

pdf data mining,    smlx generations and also for IFC integrations (Which we have /I have developed for Tekla works fine) (We have thorough Detailing experiences for  30 years)

Who are these developers in the AstorBase?

Are they Authorized developers?

DevelopersIDs

Key CompanyText RangeStart RangeEnd StringPrefix
1 DSC 0 2000 *
2 UK1 20001 20500 UK1
3 PAG 19901 20000 PAG
4 UK2 20501 21000 UK2
5 DSCPr1 19801 19900 DSCPr1
6 UK1 21001 22000 UK1
7 DSC 50000 100000 *

Do the range Start and RangeEnd of Astorbase table decide licensing and rights to develop which  define the credentials?

Cant we create our own range?