Tag Archives: Dieter Schlaepfer

Dissecting Dieter’s perpetual points

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I like Dieter Schlaepfer, we’ve been arguing for years.

Dieter and I have never met in person, but online we go back to the CIS:ACAD CompuServe days of the early 1990s. Dieter’s a good guy who has done a splendid job with AutoCAD documentation content for decades. He is genuinely interested in improving the product and customer experience, and has done a great deal to do so over the years.

Dieter’s responsible for the most-commented post on this blog, AutoCAD 2013 – An Autodesk Help writer responds with 164 comments and was a heavy contributor to the 95 comments on the recent AutoCAD 2018 – why did the DWG format change? post.

If you read the comments here, you’ll know that Dieter is the only Autodesk person brave enough to put his head above the parapet and enter into discussions here in recent times, even though he’s not doing so in any official capacity. Autodesk’s PR people give me a wide berth and the Autodesk view would be completely unrepresented here if not for Dieter. He’s prepared to put his hand up and say, “But what about this?” when it’s an unpopular viewpoint and nobody else is prepared to say it. Props to Dieter for that.

Among Dieter’s many recent comments, he outlined 12 considerations in the rental v perpetual argument. Myself and others have been having fun eviscerating his tortured pub analogy, but his more serious arguments deserve a more considered response than can be comfortably provided in a comment, hence this post.

Let’s take Dieter’s considerations one by one. Bear in mind I’m approaching this from a long-term Autodesk customer point of view. You may look at things differently, and that’s fine.

1. Cost – if a rental, lease, or membership were low enough in price, almost everyone would do so (at a dollar a month, heck, I’d lease my shoes)

Fantasy argument. If Lear would hire me a private jet for $1 a month, sure, sign me up. The reality is that rental costs more, except in the short term. That’s why companies rent things out: to make money. That’s why Autodesk is doing it; it’s an attempt, however hamfisted, to make more money. On cost, rental loses.

2. Business model, terms and conditions, and their consequences

Vague. But given the terms and conditions attached to Autodesk rental (standalone users must use a terrible licensing system) and the consequences (software stops working the instant you stop paying), rental loses big-time here.

3. Quality of fulfillment – this is to your point

Not sure what Dieter means here. ???

4. Tax consequences

This varies from place to place. I can get a 100% write-off whether buying a perpetual license, maintaining it or renting it. I may want to get a bigger write-off sooner, or not. Neutral.

5. Opportunity cost – by tying up a lot of cash, what potential opportunities do you lose?

Depending on a business’s cashflow and other circumstances, this is a possible valid argument. However, only in the short term. Because rental costs more in the long term, it costs you more in potential opportunity in the long term. Overall, rental loses.

6. Financial accounting – rental, lease, or membership costs can easily be assigned to each project and billed to each customer

If I don’t have the need to do that, it’s irrelevant. But even if that’s the way you need or prefer to do things, it’s still only partially true that rental can be a benefit. Let’s say you have won a project that is planned to take 9 months and rent Autodesk software for a year: it costs you $3000 and you pay up front (because you’re not insane enough to pay Autodesk’s monthly rental prices). You finish the project in 10 months. You use that software for other smaller projects that crop up during that 10 month period, and after it’s over. Quick, how much of that $3000 do you apportion to each project? See, it’s not as simple as it appears.

It’s really not difficult to have perpetual license software costs handled in the same way as overheads and other long-term costs that can’t be directly attributed to a project. You’re not going to be able to sack your accountant thanks to software rental. Neutral.

7. Flexibility – you can easily increase or decrease the number and types of licenses for several (not just one) products

Ah, flexibility. Let’s say I’m convinced by Dieter’s other arguments and convert my perpetual license to rental under the current so-called “discount” offer. In doing so, I throw away my flexibility. I can’t ever stop paying or my software stops working. Down the track I may not need that license for a while, but even then I can’t hop off the rental train because if I do that and then hop back on, my software costs will treble (roughly – it varies).

As for the several products thing, Autodesk has been pushing customers into suites and collections where a high price is paid for a block of products. Can you drop back from a collection to a product or two for a while, then back to other products or up to a collection again? Sure, Autodesk is very flexible. Just forego your “discount” and pay an astronomical increase, no problem.

Autodesk has been progressively removing its customers’ flexibility for decades and will undoubtedly continue to do so as long as it thinks that will make more money that way.

So please don’t come the rental=flexibility argument with me. On flexibility too, Autodesk’s rental loses.

8. A truly perpetual software license requires you to maintain obsolete hardware and old operating systems, and discourages the adoption of new technologies

No it doesn’t. A non-upgradable license might do that, whether perpetual or otherwise. That doesn’t apply to perpetual licenses under maintenance. It didn’t even used to apply to perpetual licenses not under maintenance. Whose fault is it that perpetual licenses not under maintenance are no longer upgradable? Autodesk’s. False argument.

9. Perpetual licenses put most of the financial burden on new customers rather than spreading it more fairly between all users

Actually, with perpetual licenses the financial burden is much more fairly spread. What costs more, developing a product from scratch or maintaining it? Perpetual license purchasers pay a higher amount for the initial purchase, just as the developer pays a higher amount for the initial development. The developer is fairly rewarded for providing the product for the customer to use. Following that, the developer is fairly rewarded for maintaining and improving it.

But I really hope you’re not trying to convince people that Autodesk is price-forcing customers onto rental in order to be fairer to them, because I think incredulity would be the appropriate reaction. False argument.

10. Perpetual software licenses create “a long tail” of product versions, making data sharing between users more difficult

Perpetual software licenses that are maintained do no such thing. If a vendor provides good value for that maintenance payment, then people will maintain the software. Autodesk maintenance value for money has been dreadful in recent years, leading to people dropping it. Improving Autodesk’s performance in that area would reduce the length of the tail. Making maintenance value for money even worse by racking up prices will lead to people dropping it and sticking on old releases much longer. Autodesk’s rental push is lengthening the tail, not shortening it.

Incidentally, there is a new benefit for subscription customers with multi-user (network) licenses. Guess what? Five releases are now supported rather than four. Yes, Autodesk rental is literally lengthening the tail. False argument.

11. Perpetual software licenses encourage users to use less secure software and operating systems in a time when cybercrime and espionage are mushrooming

See 10 above. False argument.

12. Providers of perpetual licenses have less incentive to support long-time customers than providers of rental, leased, and membership business models do

Absolutely wrong. This is literally the exact opposite of observed reality.

You know what model really provides an incentive for vendors to improve the product? Perpetual licenses with optional paid upgrades. With the perpetual/upgrade model, if there’s no improvement, there’s no ongoing income. But that model was too much like hard work. Easier to just remove our options over the years to manipulate customers into paying more and getting less. Autodesk priced that model out of the market and then killed it off because it wanted to get people paying for just using the software rather than as a reward for improving it.

It’s proven by history. The closer Autodesk got to the all-rental model, the worse the rate of improvement became. As an improvement incentive, rental loses.

There you go, Dieter. Rental loses on five considerations and wins on none. And I’m being generous by considering points 10 and 11 as neutral.

Feel free to add your own observations on perpetual v rental. If you want to have a go at Dieter’s arguments or mine, go for it. I just ask that you play the ball, not the man.

Autodesk has some great documentation people

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The most heavily commented post on this blog is AutoCAD 2013 – An Autodesk Help writer responds, featuring Dieter Schlaepfer‘s response to posts and comments here about AutoCAD 2013’s Help. I don’t always agree with Dieter but I respect him enormously, and not just because he was brave enough to stick his head above the parapet in a hostile environment. Dieter is a principal technical writer at Autodesk with many years’ experience and is therefore responsible for large amounts of documentation content. You’ve almost certainly read his work.

I’ve been critical of AutoCAD’s Help system since it was broken in 2011, and I make no apologies for that. The Help system sucked then, it sucked even worse in 2013, and it continues to suck badly in 2017. None of that’s Dieter’s fault. It’s the Help engine that’s at fault, or to be more accurate the Help engines, because the online and offline engines still both suck in various ways. Clearly there’s someone important at Autodesk satisfied with the ongoing Help engine awfulness, but that’s not Dieter. He’s responsible for content, not the engine. Content isn’t the problem. The content is actually very good, and gradually improving as Dieter finds ways to do so. It’s just that the system for accessing that content is so terrible that not many people get to read much of it these days, which is a crying shame.

I digress. Dieter’s awesome.

Also awesome is Lee Ambrosius, who does a great job with developer documentation. That job’s less visible, but still very important and performed to an excellent standard. Lee is very technically knowledgeable and understands users, developers and their documentation requirements. Within the confines of the systems he’s forced to work with, Lee has done the very best job it would be possible for anyone to do.

Everybody knows Lynn Allen, of course. Not just an entertaining and engaging presenter at AU and a thousand smaller gatherings, she has been producing beautifully prepared tips-and-tricks and what’s-new articles, posts and documents for so long she must surely have been a toddler when she started. The value of Lynn to Autodesk and its customers is hard to calculate, but is clearly immense.

Last but not least, Heidi Hewett has done an exemplary job for many years in producing preview guides, posts and other documents. You don’t get to see some of them because they are confined to pre-release testers, but I assure you that they are done to the same high standard as the ones that go public.

The work of our illustrious foursome and other talented writers can be found on the AutoCAD Blog and I’m sure my readers will find something of use there.

Let’s critique AutoCAD’s parametric constraints

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One of the big-ticket features of AutoCAD 2010 was parametric constraints. This was old hat for many applications, even some based on AutoCAD like Mechanical Desktop. Parametrics and constraints already existed in vanilla AutoCAD in the guise of dynamic blocks, but this was the first time ordinary AutoCAD allowed ordinary AutoCAD objects to be constrained and linked to parametric dimensions.

Contraints mean that you can draw some objects and tell them that they are only allowed to behave in certain ways. For example, two lines have to remain parallel to each other. Parametrics mean that objects can be tied to special dimensions such that the dimensions drive the objects, not the other way round.

How good a job has Autodesk done with creating and improving this feature in AutoCAD? Has Autodesk done its usual trick of releasing a half-baked feature and then ignoring it to death? In one vital respect, the answer is a resounding yes. AutoCAD’s parametric constraints can only be applied to 2D objects. Draw a shape using a polyline, apply constraints and parameters, and adjust them to make things work properly and appear correctly. Now extrude the polyline to convert it to a 3D solid. Your carefully applied constraints and dimensions are instantly exterminated. This was a huge and obvious hole in the feature when it was introduced, but on the fourth iteration of this feature in AutoCAD 2013, that gaping hole remains resolutely unfilled. I guess Autodesk is keeping AutoCAD’s parametrics in this flattened state in order to protect Inventor from internal competition.

This 3D failing is very obvious, but I’m interested in more subtle aspects than that. As my experience with parametrics in other applications is limited, I’d like to encourage you to provide us all with the benefit of your knowledge. How does the AutoCAD 2013 implementation compare with that found in Inventor? Solidworks? Mechanical Desktop? How easy and efficient is it to use, in terms of creating usable parametric drawings and manipulating them? Is it logical and reliable? Are there any missing capabilities? The Devil is in the details, so has Autodesk overlooked any?

I’d also encourage less experienced users to comment. If you don’t want to enter a new field with your own drawing started from scratch, have a look at this sample drawing courtesy of Autodesk’s Dieter Schlaepfer. Here’s what Dieter has to say about it:

For your amusement, here’s a backyard deck that I whipped up a while back as a parametric design. It’s saved in R2010 format. After you turn on the geometric and dimensional constraints, open the Parameters Manager and try changing the value of Angle from 90 to 120, 130, and 140 degrees. Also, try changing the value of Tread from 18 (inches, sorry) to 16 or 20.

No question that this takes a bit of experience and it’s not for everyone.

If you prefer to embark on your own journey of discovery, here are some deliberately vague instructions. As always in AutoCAD, there are many ways of doing the same thing, but this will do to get you started:

  1. Draw a closed polyline describing an open L shape (let’s say it’s a metal plate). Make sure the corners are square, but you don’t have to make the sizes totally accurate.
  2. Use the AutoConstrain feature on the polyline.
  3. Perform a few grip edits on the constrained polyline so you can see what difference the constraints have made.
  4. Use Dimensional Constraints Aligned to dimension the plate in four key places: each overall plate width dimension and each of the leg width dimensions. Hint: press an initial Enter to use Object mode before selecting the object. When you are prompted for the dimension text, either press Enter if it’s was drawn accurately or enter the correct size if it wasn’t. The plate should change to the size you enter.
  5. If you want these dimensions to show up on plots, you will need to make sure their Constraint Form is set to Annotational. You can use the Properties palette to do this. You may also need to use DIMEDIT Home to put the dimension text in the usual place.
  6. Try using a few normal editing operations on the objects (e.g. STRETCH, COPY, ROTATE, TRIM, grip edit) to see how they react.
  7. Try modifying the objects by double-clicking on the dimensions and changing the values, then using Parameters Manager.

So, how was that? Easy? Difficult? Useful but awkward? Any areas where efficiency could be improved (e.g. too many clicks required for common operations)? Can you use this in your work or is there some problem lurking that appears to be a dealkiller?

Edit: Here’s a more complex example from Dieter: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n5hng961nj1dkzy/gasket1.dwg?m

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AutoCAD explained

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Following my comments on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AutoCAD, Autodesk’s Dieter Schlapfer has sought to explain the reasoning behind it. Here’s what he has to say:

As mentioned previously, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AutoCAD is designed for occasional AutoCAD users and those coming back from their initial training. These are people who just need a base level of knowledge in 2D AutoCAD to get things done, and who don’t necessarily want to become experts. To make future versions more effective, I really want to get some input on the 42 AutoCAD commands, and any descriptions or illustrations that are not clear. Especially valuable to me is feedback coming from occasional users.

Here’s some history. Believe it or not, the 42 commands came first! I kept flaunting this number, which was based on an internal AutoCAD overview class that I taught a while back, in response to people who complained about how hard it is to learn AutoCAD. Based on that interesting number, two of my colleagues made the connection to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the title of which was based on Ken Welch’s book, Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe (I have the 1986 edition).

Creating a hitchhiker’s guide to AutoCAD was a terrific idea and the next thing I knew, I was writing it. Most of the 42 commands were no-brainer choices, but there were several that I knew would be controversial among experienced AutoCAD users. Based on internal feedback and CIP popularity, I made a number of revisions to my original list but I’m open to being persuaded to make additional changes.

My biggest challenge was handling scaling and layouts. As you know, there are four primary ways to annotate drawings. It was tough, but I ended up choosing the one that was easiest to learn, the trans-spatial method, while giving a nod to the others.

Again, I’m looking for feedback from relatively new and occasional users. Where exactly is the guide weak or confusing, including any illustrations? I already have some things that I definitely want to change moving forward, but if any of you find someone willing to try it out, or if you have strong opinions about something in the guide, please let me know either here or email me directly at dieters@youknowwho.com (for the bots).

AutoCAD 2013 Help shock – it no longer sucks

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Some months ago, I gave Autodesk several damn good (and thoroughly well-deserved) thrashings over its hopelessly inadequate AutoCAD 2013 Help system. When Autodesk’s Dieter Schlaepfer responded and asked for feedback, he sure got it. There are 142 comments on that one post to date, most of them leaving nobody under any illusions about how short of the mark the new system was.

There is now an updated version of the AutoCAD 2013 Help system. It has been an interminably long time coming, a fact made far worse by Autodesk’s stubborn refusal to provide a CHM stopgap (which could have easily been done on the ship date with minimal resources if the will had been there), but at least an update is here now. Is it any good, though?

I’ve seen fit to give the online version of the updated system a few minutes of my time and I have to say that it’s now way, way better than it was before. In a remarkable turnaround from current standard Autodesk practice, it would appear that customer feedback has not just been listened to, but actually acted on. Honest! Search results make sense. Performance is generally way better than I expected from an online system. There are links to useful things like lists of commands. Things like forward/back mouse buttons work as expected. Various things I expected to suck, simply didn’t. Huh? What’s going on here?

It’s not all brilliant. There are occasional unexpected pauses, but not to excess. A Douglas Adams fan (Dieter?) is clearly responsible for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AutoCAD. It’s fun, but I’m not convinced it’s particularly useful. The layout is confusing and the content has me somewhat baffled. Is DRAWORDER really one of the first things a beginner needs to know about AutoCAD? Or were there 41 things in someone’s list and that one was thrown in there to make the number up to 42?

That aside, this thing is looking good. Unlike the last effort, I don’t think it deserves Total Existence Failure. But does it just look good in comparison with what went before? Have I been so shocked by apparent adequacy that I have missed some glaring problem? You tell me. Please, give it a fair go and report back on what you think.

If you want to try the offline version, here it is. It’s not immediately obvious, but you’ll need to uninstall the old one first before the new one will install, don’t bother. It’s still the horrible old thing. See I was wrong about AutoCAD 2013 Help, it still sucks for what I think about that.

AutoCAD 2013 – An Autodesk Help writer responds

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Following some email discussions, I am happy to present a response from a relevant Autodesk person to the posts and comments here about AutoCAD 2013’s Help.

Thanks for the opportunity to respond to your readers, Steve.

First, I want to assure you that we’re listening to your comments about AutoCAD 2013 Help. We are adding it to the valuable feedback we’ve already received from users who participated in our Beta program. I responded promptly to every comment from each Beta user and will now address a wider audience.

Here are some of the trends we’ve seen so far in the suggestions users are making about AutoCAD Help:

  • Additional navigation to supplement our Search function
  • Alphabetical listings of AutoCAD commands and system variables
  • Improved precision from the Search function
  • Access to information about new features

We are working right now on our update plans. We invite your additional comments about any other problems you’ve had so that we can have a broad view of your needs as we define the scope of our update.

I’m glad to say that Help updates will no longer have to wait until the next product release. I’d also like to emphasize that the software industry, Autodesk included, is trending toward online delivery of both software and documentation, and that these technology changes pose significant challenges to all of us.

We always appreciate your feedback and we take it seriously.

Thanks and best regards,

Dieter Schlaepfer
Principal Content Developer
Autodesk, Inc.

As Dieter suggests, please comment here with your problems and suggestions. Please be as brutally honest as you wish about Autodesk, its offerings and its future plans. However, I ask that you remain civil. I have ‘known’ Dieter on-line for about 20 years and can attest to his integrity, intelligence and intense desire to do the best job possible. He did indeed respond very fully and honestly to the comments made by myself and others during the Beta program and in our emails. He may very well be the best listener I’ve ever come across, in any context.

In short, Dieter’s one of the good guys and he’s doing a brave thing here. Let him know what you really think, but please don’t beat him up.