Sketchup 64 bit?
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My comments and opinions are mine and mine alone. My goal is not to argue, debate, or sway. I simply want to express myself.
I've worked with John for a little over 7 years now. He is a decisive, intelligent, and fantastic leader whom I would follow to any company. Period. I understand that excuses are not requested here, only results. Well, we've been hiring roughly a new person every month since beginning with Trimble. A huge breath of fresh ideas and innovations have been infused into SketchUp's (pale?) skin. It's no mystery that development on the SketchUp client slowed near the end of our time at Google. However, the improvements that I've seen over these short months have been astounding to me. I feel like everyone is very excited for the huge potential and future for SketchUp. Albeit, many wholes have yet to be filled, but that's a challenge we're prepared to face. Will you be blown away with the next version of SketchUp? I don't know. We'll find out. Ripping a software infrastructure out of a company (especially Google) and setting it up in another company isn't exactly like moving a tent between two camp grounds. We're working fast and furious to deliver great products (because SketchUp is only part of our portfolio), but it may take some time to see the strides of innovation that we expect from ourselves (let alone the expectations of SketchUp's passionate community). Patience is a luxury that no software company can ask of its users, and I won't do so today. If you've used SketchUp to successfully complete a project in the last month, year, or eight years, then we've done our job. Of course, we want all SketchUp users to continually find success with SketchUp every day, and if they don't they should absolutely explore other options. Competition does wonders for innovation as well (I learned that at Google
.Many thanks for lending me your time and attention.
Cheers!
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Thanks for chiming in Tommy. I do look forward to seeing what SketchUp 2013 brings. I realise it takes a while to reorganize and that lots of the time spent the last year has been restructuring from Google to something new, but just the fact that SketchUp is now looking get annual release cycles gives me good hopes. My expectations of the next release is a small indication to what I could expect in the future - contrasting it to the direction we saw Google taking it.
It'll probably be of no surprise to anyone that I'll be looking more toward what the Ruby API will give than anything else. -
@sketchup guide tommy said:
Ripping a software infrastructure out of a company (especially Google) and setting it up in another company isn't exactly like moving a tent between two camp grounds.
yeah.. i do some random stuff from timetotime for an ad agency here and saw them move from downtown up to hell's kitchen.. around 80 employees (and probably hundreds of computers)..
it took them a few months to get back to normal production rate and at two years now, i'd say they're almost fully settled in..
so that And moving to a different parent company surely must be a nice bit of fun for you all
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Thanks Tommy!
I believe patience is in this case challenging for many (since the last major release is some long time ago). New features are still (even in these hard times) not disclosed (or even hinted). Nobody can understand what you are really working on very hard until it's released with a big surprise.
Let's have good hopes, everything suggests a positive future. -
My understanding is that Google didn't give out any information until release.
What's Trimbles stand on this?
Many software companies have a more open communication with its users and publish teasers of upcoming new features and such to keep the user base "happy" and informed of what to expect.
I feel the last years lack of communication added to the frustration when users had high hopes and were disappointed when the product shipped without features we "guessed" would certainly be there. (Me included.) -
@pixero said:
My understanding is that Google didn't give out any information until release.
What's Trimbles stand on this?
Many software companies have a more open communication with its users and publish teasers of upcoming new features and such to keep the user base "happy" and informed of what to expect.
I feel the last years lack of communication added to the frustration when users had high hopes and were disappointed when the product shipped without features we "guessed" would certainly be there. (Me included.)Good point, I hope Trimble does not inherit Goggles bad habits and anti user philosophy.
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@pixero said:
My understanding is that Google didn't give out any information until release.
What's Trimbles stand on this?
i'm thinking after 10 months of trimbleSU, we can figure out the answer to that question on our own..
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@Last wasn't too open either about their upcoming releases. I think its built into them, more than imposed upon them
I could be wrong though! -
@chris fullmer said:
@Last wasn't too open either about their upcoming releases. I think its built into them, more than imposed upon them
I could be wrong though!I hope not, I'd really prefer an open relationship, working together, feeling part of the Sketchup team. More understandable to get news of a feature I need not included when well discussed and explained than nothing.
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I believe the positive effects of openness far outweighs any giveaways to a competitor.
(To be honest I feel SketchUp has a lot of catching up to do before the competition would be interested in what they about to do.)Just think of how many great ideas could come if Trimble "sat down" with us and asked: "What can we do to make your everyday life easier?"
I wish Trimble would realize how lucky they are to have such a devoted user community. I also believe that the more devoted the community is the more it should be included not excluded.
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@unknownuser said:
I wish Trimble would realize how lucky they are to have such a devoted user community. I also believe that the more devoted the community is the more it should be included not excluded.
That's a nice way to put it.
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@pixero said:
Just think of how many great ideas could come if Trimble "sat down" with us and asked: "What can we do to make your everyday life easier?"
Like BaseCamp?
Like Reddit?
Like the feature request thread on the Google forum?The thing is, I think many people would like them to say in advance what will be released next round. Which I fully understand any developer to hold back. Because it's really hard to predict what will make it into the next release. Something might crop up that makes implementation take longer, maybe it has to be scrapped because it caused unforeseen consequences.
Expecting them to reveal in advance what will be included is a dead end.
I do think they have several channels where they do listen. ("Listen" doesn't mean they will do everything that is mentioned.)
I was not really wowed by the features implemented under the Google reign. Sure, there was some nice ones, but considering the time SketchUp was owned by Google I had somewhat expected more to develop - one thing is the modelling tools another is the API and docs. But as information has come out after Google it's clear that Google wasn't throwing resources after the product - only enough to build what they needed for their mapping services.
Now with Trimble, we've yet to see a full release, but we do know there will be one each year. So at least that's some predictability - as before you never really had a clue. It also indicate increased development. And they even announced several positions after the Trimble acquisition - meaning their expected workload is increasing. And at BaseCamp they said that Layout would receive more attention - a product nearly laid dead under Google.
So, I'm excited about this next SketchUp release, but even more so for the 2014 release - because that will give an indication to the direction and changes SketchUp will make and it would have given this new Trimble team time to settle in.
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@thomthom said:
The thing is, I think many people would like them to say in advance what will be released next round. Which I fully understand any developer to hold back. Because it's really hard to predict what will make it into the next release. Something might crop up that makes implementation take longer, maybe it has to be scrapped because it caused unforeseen consequences.
Expecting them to reveal in advance what will be included is a dead end.
There are several software companies that are more open about such things.
There can be roadmaps, tech news and such without specifying a date when a certain feature will be released.
Thea Render is one, just to mention an example.Hey, even Adobe and Autodesk has "labs" with technology previews.
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Guys,
I see this debate has moved to the question of disclosure and communication with the user-base!
Someone said that @Last did not disclose in advance what was to come, not exactly so! I distinctly remember attending one of the BaseCamps when quite a few intended new directions were indicated and demo'd on the big screen! Some made it into the subsequent release, some didn't, at least it opened up opinion, debate and created buzz! There was no one too disappointed that certain things indicated didn't make it and everyone loved the buzz
In my humble opinion there are two reasons a company / manufacturer will not make know what it has in the pipeline, either the new product is so innovative that it doesn't what to let the cat out on the bag in fear that it could be upstaged / copied by others or they simply don't have anything much exciting in mind!
The new trend these days, even adopted by Apple if what I read can be believed, is to 'leak' information. The new iWatch for example! There is some method in this 'madness', it creates a buzz rather than moaning and groaning ..... like we have here on this particular thread!
We won't have to wait too much longer to find out which it is, ground breaking or mundane! I understand the next release of SketchUp and its siblings, if they materialize, will be called SketchUp (flavor) 2013 etc ...... there are only 10 months left in 2013 and I imagine we will not be seeing a last minute release ...... then again there is not even a release date set in stone. No deadlines equals no decisions made!
Whoever is in charge of 'buzz creation' at Trimble SketchUp, if anyone, needs to look at the situation with new eyes. They are missing a golden opportunity! I am at their service should they need advise / assistance
Mike
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Oh, we can't leak what we know, and we can't leak what we don't know.
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It's less about leaking and more about throwing bones.
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ThomThom has been one of the most adamant supporters of converting SketchUp to 64bit... I'm sure he'll let us know when it comes out... </sarc> Until then I'll concentrate on other matters. Like how many more plugins I can stuff in this fat hawg.
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@solo said:
It's less about leaking and more about throwing bones.
Even a blind dog stumbles across a bone now and then!
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imo:
calling for the suTeam to let us know what we'll see in the next version doesn't really 'fix' anything.. for one, all we do is basically move the timescale around a bit.. (i.e.- we all know what's coming in su9 so now we're sitting around talking about su10 instead.. same thing only we're left projecting even further into the future)..
for two though.. if i put myself in their shoes and people were barraging me with stuff like "do your project my way.. tell me what i want to know about it.. etcetc" .. i'd seriously be like STFUMFS!
[edit] well, actually.. if they were my clients.. i'd feel a lot more open to including them in the process..
[/edit]i mean, they do it their way and a compromise between users would be a lot more than just letting us know what's to be included in the next version.. other developers which are more inline with suggestions in the thread have a completely different approach all together which allows the users to actually be an integral part of the development process.. and i can appreciate those approaches but if i'm being honest, I myself would probably go more the route of how the suTeam does it.. I don't want people all up in my project.. it's my project you know and i generally want to have a good amount of control over it...
now, where my approach leaves the people actually using the stuff i build... i dunno.. is it the best design for them? possibly not.. am i satisfied with it? usually..
but if i didn't do it my way to begin with, it probably wouldn't even of happened...hmm.. that's ^ supposed to be saying something.. not quite sure i nailed it though..
[EDIT] anyway.. all things considered, i think Solo has the best idea..
come on.. throw a dog a bone every now and then..
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You failed.....epically
STFUMFS
The STFU part i get but the MFS? Is that what I think it is? Like the old Prince song?
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