Solidworks vs. ProE

[michaelpaul]

The conclusion I've come to is it works great for a majritiy of people, but if you're in the minority that works in a different way, you're going to have a hard time of it.

That's probably true and accurate. the problem is that the power users, the people who really need the specialty of Pro-E swear up and down how superior it is to people who just plain don't need the advanced functionality it can offer. The super users can't always remove themselves and their needs form the argument and simply think that SW (or any other package) just isn't powerful enough so nobody should use it. if they can't do something in SW then it means it's a bad package even if 98% of all users would never use that feature anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I've recently started using SW again after a 6 year break and I too find it frustrating. I'm stuck back in a Pro-E "this is how you will do it and you'll like it" mindset. I battle a bit. But I still prefer it for the types of parts I work on.

two of my former companies were Pro-E and they switched to SW. One of them is in the same industry I'm in now so clearly the parts (95% Injection molded plastic parts) can be modelled in either system.

I honestly think (and this comes from talking to many pro-E users who have many years of experience on Pro-E and then started to use SW on the side) that when you are a super user in Pro-E, you just are going to have a hard time switching. for better or for worse, you know pro-E so well, that you already know either the A) correct way to do something, or more likley B) the way you have to do it in pro-E so that it doesn't crash. You've programmed your mind to work a certain way and when you use SW it's hard to turn off that programming, especially when doing something is exactly opposite to what your brain wants you to do. I know this doesn't apply to everybody but the few people at work that were only pro-E for years and years that started using SW struggled because things are just done differently.

Draft while extrude? why would you do that. you should just put your drafts at the end of the model. never mind that it reduces the number of features in your model tree and since the draft is a necessary part of the extrude the references are hard references and won't go away. it's just a fundamental shift from the logic they've been using for years.

Edited by: michaelpaul

 

[GLEN20]

It's sad that I went through all those PTC classes
including Mechanica for $62k/yr - I get laid off, and I
took Essentials and advanced Solidworks training,
similarly I took the RE-Inventor classes as well.......
but the funniest thing happened in the recession in which
the TOOL does not matter - I landed a Manufacturing
Engineering Manager position making $98k running ACAD LT,
and no one cares if I show all dims. extrude, make cuts
or use holes, drawings in trimetric........ so go ahead
make fun of each other's tools - at the end of the day it
just ends up as an e-drawing! I'll lough my way to the
bank in Upstate NY
Can't believe I'm using ACAD LT, Isn't this just a step
above Turbo Cad and below Pro-E Junior