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Theres so little input from PTC on this site that most of
what goes on seems to be a voice in the wilderness - that
seems to lead to a lot of frustration.
We all need a sounding board for improvements that PTC
takes some interest in - Im not sure its here?
Perhaps we should all go to planetPTC - at least PTC front
up there occasionally although the community is not as
seasoned as this one. Edited by: moriarty
There were some postings a while back from someone who claimed to be some importance at PTC: I can't recall the screen name.
But the ability of PTC to make serious and meaningful changes to upgrade Pro/E to the point where it's competitive in today's MCAD market may be limited by factors too momentous to overcome. Let's face it: Pro/E is a Unix-based program originally (still?) written in Fortran, and PTC is (and always has been) a company controlled by their marketing and sales groups.The software development groupand the voice of the customerseem to beonly whispers on the wind at PTC. Thus, SolidWorks was born - about fifteen years ago.
If there isn't a major push by the controlling groups to completely revamp the product,this kind of major investmentisn't going to happen. Efforts to 'revamp' the product in the past have only been window dressing intended to appease the management at Pro/E's customers (Wildfire is a classic example).
You're right, dr_gallup: I don't know what language Pro/E 1.0 was written in. Back in the mid-80's, Fortran was pretty much all there was for scientific and engineering applications. I know that's what I was writing code in. What language was Pro/E 1.0 written in? What language is it in today? But we all know it's not a native Windows application, whatever the core language is or ever was. Again, the roots of SW: that's what got all of those PTC guys to quit and start a new company.
I certainly hope that Ligthning is a significant step forward. But even if it is, I doubt my employer will adopt it within the next few years: things move very slowly here. On the bright side, my boss told me he wants me to become more actively involved in some of our new products that are being designed in SW. I'm glad I have been staying current with my SW skills: after all, that's what almost every company we deal with is running.
Might I ask what the source of your PTC hatred is? I have less ill-feeling towards my bank than it appears you have towards PTC.
Also I am interested in quite why you said Pro/Engineer was written in Fortran, if you didn't actually have any idea. I can think of all sorts of things to talk about that I don't have the first clue about, but I find my argument flows easier with a pint of beer. Then I can find all sorts of facts to bolster my line of reasoning. Alternatively, you could go and see John Cleese.
You're right, dr_gallup: I don't know what language Pro/E 1.0 was written in. Back in the mid-80's, Fortran was pretty much all there was for scientific and engineering applications. I know that's what I was writing code in. What language was Pro/E 1.0 written in? What language is it in today?
So you have no idea what it was originally, nor what it is today but you assume because Fortran was 'it' in the 80's Pro/E must have been then. In reality, you have no idea, yet you assert that it is Fortran. If you have no facts, please stay quiet.
Mindripper said:
But we all know it's not a native Windows application, whatever the core language is or ever was.
Again, I don't know that, in fact I recall that back about Rev. 20 or so PTC made some noise about being a native Windows app. Is it now? I dunno, but it works well enough on windows so I don't care. I highly suspect that you have no idea either.
Also we should agree on what is a "native windows application"... is it something GUI related? API related? Is it the look and feel? Do we REALLY care if it is or it is not NATIVE, as long as its "non-nativeness" doesn't hurt the user?
Just an example: WF5 still does not support spaces in filenames, but this can be fixed with windows standard APIs or without'em. The file requester is non standard... and you know what? I LOVE having the search bar even if I'm on WinXP
So what are the facts? Does anyone here know? Surely there aresome knowledgeablecontributors herewho know more of the legacy of Pro/E than I do, as dgs is suggesting. I do know that when I started working with solid modeling CAD/CAE applications back in the mid-80's, everything was written in Fortran, and the hardware and operating systemswere designed to run Fortran applications: PRIMOS running on a Prime 9955 or SunOS running on a SPARCStation 2usingPrime Medusa andANSYS are my examples. I was first exposed Pro/E at Release 3 (I think), when the the PTC sales guys showed up and put on their very slick and well-practiced binocular demo for us - onour SGI Iris 4D workstation.
I think SW is written in C++: some error messages that pop up before or after it crashes suggest this. Yeah, it isn't perfect either. Pro/E just crashes: no warning, no messages - it just vaporizes into the ether.
So the question remains: what language were the early versions of Pro/E written in? What language is it written in today? Can anyone give an honest answer to these simple questions, without feeling offended? After all, we are being nostalgic here, and times have changed for the better for all of us - I hope. But perhaps some of us are cursing the advent of modern technology running roughshod over their comfortable little world that is living in the past.
AFAIK, Pro/E is/was written in a combination of C & C++. Unix was hardly "designed to run Fortran", Unix was one of the first programs written in C. Fortran dates back to the early mainframe days, long before anyone had written a commercial CAD program. Fortran was used for early FEA software but I'd be surprised if anyone ever wrote a CAD program with it.
the funny thing is that alot of people in solidworks blog sphere are talking about a replacement for solidworks after they heard about it changing it's kernel.everyone is talking about solidedge ST3 now
. even big solidworks figures like matt lombard has said that solidedge ST3 has alot of advantages over solidworks. so i suggest you take a look at solidedge ST3 too, mindripper. maybe it's the dream MCAD that your bosses are looking for.
SolidWorks is changing it's kernel? That's news to me. But I am not all-knowing or all-seeing. I should look into this.
I have heard good things about SolidEdge. At my previous job, the guy I worked with had used it at his previous job: he quickly adapted to SolidWorks. My bosses here could care less about the future of MCAD: none of them are users, so PTC's sales model is well suited to them. And the whole company is somewhat resistant to change - until our competitors force it upon us. Yes, our biggest competitor abandoned Pro/E (and some other MCAD products) a few years ago to make SW their sole MCAD platform company-wide.
We actually have a seat of SolidEdge here, because a company we acquired was running it. Adapting to SolidEdge would probably be easy for a SW user: it also uses the Parsolids kernel. But I don't think it's as widely used as SW, ep. in this area (the Silicon Valley).
Frankly, I think PTC is setting themselves up for criticism. They are really hyping Lightning and promising big thing, but in very vague and general terms. If the little 'survey' they did on your biggest CAD issue is any indication, I'm prepared to be disappointed.
If I had to guess right now, I bet Lighting will be WF6 & CoCreate rolled into one and more tightly integrated into Windchill, MathCad and Arbortext. I also predict that it will cost nearly everyone something to 'upgrade'.
I find it a bit ironic that they keep naming their products after natural disasters. When Wildfire came out we joked that the next would be Sandstorm, Earthquake, Typhoon or Tornado. Turns out we were right.
I'm just looking for Pro/E to undergo some real evolutionary change; I'm not looking for or expecting a perfect solution, just an effort to undergo some meaningful level of the kind of evolutionary change that all of the other MCAD systems have undergone in the last decade. Let's face it: there hasn't been any fundamental improvement in Pro/E in over a decade. Wildfire added some limited functionality: a few functions were changed and some functions were iconized (to this day, many functions still do not have icon-based menus) and the workflow was altered slightly, but the limited flexibility, lack of Windows integrationand poor graphics remain. I am not getting any younger: my aging eyes do not appreciate the inferior graphics, which is unchanged since I started using Pro/E in 1997. Based on what I have heard and seen, most (if not all) of the modern MCAD tools out there are better than Pro/E when it comes to workflow, graphics and Windows integration. And I am also jaundiced by PTC's sales-driven development strategy: all too often their 'big advances' are just hype to draw the management at their customers deeper into the tangled web of applications they are hawkingwith the sole intent ofsucking more money out of them, while they make little effort to improve the core functionality of Pro/E.
Out here in California, a wildfire is a very bad thing:we have always questionedthis poor choice of product names. We don't get much lightning out here. I know that in the Midwest they get lots of lightning, and it is considered a very bad thing there. Perhaps the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypseis the next product name: Pro/E, CoCreate, Windchill, and Arbortext.
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