ADN Membership

[GaryOrrMBI]

Opinions please.

I was an ADN member several years back (2008-2014). I never really intended to be a full fledged developer (as in developing and selling add-ons) but more so I could support the company(s) that I worked for, first as direct hire and later as a consultant, but always building tools, utilities, content, standards, etc that were specific to and targeted towards the needs of those companies.

Initially membership included direct support from the Adesk Engineers for the various software that I was building add-ons for. This support was one of the primary reasons that I joined ADN. Towards the end of my membership term the support went to a process of "submit to the forums and if you don't get an answer in a day or two then we'll take a look". This significantly reduced the value for me.

The other benefits, of course, was getting access to pre-release information so I could have things ready to align with new releases as they came out, and having the ability to install whatever versions of software I needed to be able to ensure that what I was creating would work with the company's software version and specific type of usage.

I'm not working as an Architectural tech and have started building functions to help out myself and my fellow employees (which goes further than just the Architects that I am currently supporting).

Now to my question:

For a "part-time" lightweight developer such as myself, does an ADN membership provide any real benefit these days?

If a membership proves viable then it poses another question: what are the complications of accessing those resources when I'm at work and using my user account that is affiliated with them and when I'm working at home under my other personal (and former Consulting business) user account? Am I going to have to have a two user account?

Thanks in advance for any feedback,

-Gary

[RPTHOMAS108]

Never been sure about that myself, the things you probably have to consider:

Cost of ADN membership vs cost of subscription.

If you need to use software commercially (ADN not suitable for that as I understand it).

Support was never a large requirement for me, I find that if the issue is raised here in a clear and concise manor then you will get the support or the issue will be resolved with the product. Some don't ask questions in a way that gets them the help they need (too much or too little information).

Also not sure about pre-release since it has never taken me more than a couple of weeks to respond to whatever the situation has become at April every year. If anything I'm a bit reluctant to put pre-release on my machine on the basis that it is pre-release. Since upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 and then getting stuck on a black screen with frozen juggling balls for a week after a further Windows 10 feature update I'm a bit less adventurous thesedays. There was a time when I would try anything with a PC but no, pre-release is a young persons game...or someone with an extra PC that they are happy to use as a paper weight.

What was the reason for frozen juggling balls, device driver for backup software virtual disk thing (not even pre-release to be fair). Resolving that issue was one of my proudest technical achievements. Dumped out into the wild needing to get a recovery USB stick from a PC needing a recovery USB stick.

[GaryOrrMBI]

@RPTHOMAS108 

Thanks for your thoughts. Pretty much what I was thinking.

-G