PADT 0.024 - Pragmatic Architectural Design Technology
Pragmatic Architectural Design Technology
I’m Sorry — But What Does That Mean? and Why?
(Editor’s Rant to follow). I guess I’m getting into a funk with blogging. But I’ve been asking myself - why? Why write all this when not very many people are listening. Some people wonder why I’m not doing YouTube tutorials or writing a book. I guess I’ve been at this for so long and have always felt like no one was listening. I’ve always tried to be an advocate for the user, but I’ve always ending up having to come against the interest of big companies to make a profit. I’ve always tried to show applications in light of their benefit and not just cool features. Since losing my career, I’ve been flapping in the wind. There are just too many YouTube channels which after a couple of months start asking “What would you like me to cover?” They simply run out of ideas. Because of how many channels are out there, being a consultant is really over with.
Maybe I’ve just auditioning for a position in a firm not yet formed. What I see is the architectural design software industry has gone down the rabbit hole of profits. You used to be able to use simple tools with hard-won skills learned over time and sweat to create art. Now, it’s the next big feature release or the next big web-based collaboration application. But have the tools made the art any better? Any easier? More profitable? With the constant cost, the constant upgrades, the ever increasing cost of technology, or keeping up with the Jones.
What I’m attempting is trying to do wrench the tools away from just software profits and show that excellent work can be created with simpler, easier to grasp and manage tools. But unfortunately much of what I want to see doesn’t exist. I’m thrilled to see crowd-funded work such as Blender and Godot, but where are the BIM applications? Oh, I see attempts to add this technology to these applications, but they weren’t designed for it and you really have to “bolt on” much of this. The lack of industry standard exchange files makes this much harder. What we got with CAD(D) were clones which read the proprietary file formats once they were broken. We can’t have true application and user collaboration until there are industry file format standards.
This is still my dream and hope. Until then, I’ll keep plugging away at my little projects — looking at the latest releases and sighing. When was the last time I saw a “had to have” feature instead of just a “nice” feature. Where are the applications which don’t try to supplant every other software category and just give me what I need and let me go home on time to be with my family? The promises are great, but they can’t be developed by programmers which have never had to spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week trying to just get a project done with their #$%#@#$ software.
I guess that’s why I started this. To grasp software on a philosophical level — wring the most out of “lesser” applications — to firmly grasp the “whys” and the “hows” to get the job really done and not just play with new features of no benefit.
I’m still here…
(End Rant)
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Dave Edwards has been in the CAD/BIM industry as a manager, developer, consultant, speaker, and author for almost 40 years. He has had 80 magazine articles published, written 3 international newsletters, reviewed over 300 CAD/BIM applications and 3D modeled over 1 Billion dollars worth of architectural projects. He is available for professional alpha/beta testing, application feature consulting, technical documentation, seminar presentations, and voice overs.
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