Evan on Engineering Software

Deelip Menezes is a CAD plugin developer in India, who writes a blog discussing a variety of CAD related subjects.

He's pretty good at stirring the pot:  he writes long blog posts, with plenty of opinion, and lightly filtered rants.

His most recent rant is about CAD users who think that CAD programmers are not CAD users.  He points out that he has 44 or so CAD programs on his computer, which he uses.  Therefore, he is a CAD user.

Here is my thought: A CAD user is not merely a person who uses CAD. A CAD user is a person who is a domain expert in the use of CAD software to solve a design or engineering problem. It may be that a CAD user speaks only one CAD tool "language" (e.g, Solid Edge, ComputerVision, Anvil 4000), but if they can wield that tool skillfully to solve their design or engineering problems, they are a CAD user.

Deelip claiming to be a CAD user, because has a bunch of CAD programs, and can use them to develop CAD plugins, is like a person claiming to be a mechanic because they have a bunch of wrenches, and can use them to tighten bolts.

While Deelip is a domain expert in the development of certain types of CAD plugins, that expertise doesn't necessarily translate to related domans.  (Though that doesn't stop him from jumping in with both feet.)

In his post, and the related comments, a large number of  CAD-related domains are discussed:  CAD use, CAD programming, CAD development, CAD plugin development, CAD analysis, CAD writing, CAD reviewing, CAD QA, CAD testing, CAD demonstration, CAD usability analysis, CAD failure analysis, CAD UI design, CAD documentation.

If I were looking for a domain expert in CAD plugin development, I might put Deelip pretty high on my list. 

But the other domains? Not so much.  Here are a few possibilities:

SolidCAD use: Matt Lombard.

CAD programming: Mike Riddle or Tim Olsen.

CAD development (big picture): Chuck Grindstaff or Mike Payne.

CAD analysis: Ken Versprille or Mark Halpern.

CAD reviewing: Al Dean.

As for me: I may be a domain expert in some disciplines, but I'm not fool enough to think I could give any of these folks a run for their money in their particular domain. Well... except maybe Al. But, then, he'd still kick my butt in terms of how fast he gets reviews done.

Now, back to Matt Lombard's question, as expressed by Deelip:

"To the best of my very poor memory, all of the proponents of Direct Editing as the New World Order for CAD are non-users, and the proponents of history are users ...[snip]... Any comments on that?"

My answer is that it's not his memory. It's more likely to be confirmation bias.

His question is straw-man: Most serious proponents of direct feature modeling that I know have expressed the sentiment that a two-trick pony is better than a one-trick pony, unless the one-trick pony meets your needs.

Translated: A lot of people will benefit from having both modeling technologies. Some will do fine with just parametric feature-based modeling. And some, especially those for whom feature-based modeling is just too hard, will benefit from having just direct feature modeling.

Parametric feature based modeling isn't going away. At least, not for a long time.