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> With that said, Revit does a lot of things well and there are no realistic alternatives. Vectorworks? Archicad? I'm really only familiar with the former, ful

> With that said, Revit does a lot of things well and there are no realistic alternatives. Vectorworks? Archicad? I'm really only familiar with the former, full disclosure I used to work at Vectorworks, and we certainly considered ourselves a competitor to Revit.

Suppafly 2y ago
maybe folks 'in the industry' have heard of those, but revit is the one people outside the industry have heard of.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  I was suprised parent had not heard of them as someone who used Revit for 5 years.
tylerflick 2y ago
Oddly enough I remember Vectorworks and Archicad were (are) owned by the same company but were fiercely competitive. Also, hello fellow former Nemetschek coworker .
sota_pop 2y ago
Ok - definitely fair. While I HAVE heard of VW and ArchiCAD, (I suppose I might toss Bently into the mix as well) I don’t have extensive knowledge of these programs. Therefore, take my opinion as just that. However, from my understanding, those others focus more heavily on a CAD-like environment (SketchUp is another common one here) as opposed to “BIM” (where I would define BIM as essentially a database driven type of CAD with OOP bolted on). So in that sense they are certainly suitable for drafting and may compete for the same market share, but are fundamentally different. My use case was from the perspective from an ElecEngineering team operating within an AE firm in the US. I also understand ArchiCAD is more popular outside of the US.
sota_pop 2y ago
Also I suppose this is part of the issue with “software alternatives” I find most architects by-and-large extremely _discerning_ people, composing an industry where nuance is king. In that sense if the software doesn’t do “exactly what I want, exactly how I want to do it” then it’s tossed aside as “not viable”. This is, in my view, another thing Revit does “well” - it is incredibly opinionated. For better or worse it means if you fight its intended workflow, achieving what you want is difficult or impossible. On another note, care to share your experience at VW? I’m interested to hear anything you’re willing/able to share about your time there! I know someone on the NXOpen team who has spoken highly of that team/product.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  I quite enjoyed my experience at VW! It was (and probably still is) a wonderful place to work. I have frankly never been more productive in my career. My team (and I got the impression that this was also the case for most teams) was very hands-off, just let people work. The employees are grown ups, so if they need to collaborate they can do so in an ad-hoc fashion instead of forcing them to do agile rituals. For most of my time there, I had exactly one scheduled meeting a week, you could call it weekly stand-up, and a lot of ad-hoc collaboration with my teammates. For people like me, who don't need and frankly chafe against the added structure of most agile methodologies, VW was amazing. I could just put on my headphones and code, and that's pretty much all I ever wanted. I ended up leaving because as much as I loved the workplace, I have pretty much 0 interest in the actual product. CAD is cool, and I like working on professional tools, but I have no interest whatsoever in architecture and design. I still wonder, though, if leaving VW was a mistake. If I ever find myself living in the DC metro, I will certainly reapply.
  - sota_pop 2y ago
    Wow, sounds awesome! What types of projects did you work on for the platform/product? Since I’ve become very familiar with Revit’s API (and its shortcomings) I often wonder if I should consider a role on the actual Revit dev team helping to improve the actual product itself, but I have never contributed to anything like it. What industry did you land in?

Suppafly 2y ago

maybe folks 'in the industry' have heard of those, but revit is the one people outside the industry have heard of.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I was suprised parent had not heard of them as someone who used Revit for 5 years.

tylerflick 2y ago

Oddly enough I remember Vectorworks and Archicad were (are) owned by the same company but were fiercely competitive. Also, hello fellow former Nemetschek coworker .

sota_pop 2y ago

Ok - definitely fair. While I HAVE heard of VW and ArchiCAD, (I suppose I might toss Bently into the mix as well) I don’t have extensive knowledge of these programs. Therefore, take my opinion as just that. However, from my understanding, those others focus more heavily on a CAD-like environment (SketchUp is another common one here) as opposed to “BIM” (where I would define BIM as essentially a database driven type of CAD with OOP bolted on). So in that sense they are certainly suitable for drafting and may compete for the same market share, but are fundamentally different. My use case was from the perspective from an ElecEngineering team operating within an AE firm in the US. I also understand ArchiCAD is more popular outside of the US.

sota_pop 2y ago

Also I suppose this is part of the issue with “software alternatives” I find most architects by-and-large extremely _discerning_ people, composing an industry where nuance is king. In that sense if the software doesn’t do “exactly what I want, exactly how I want to do it” then it’s tossed aside as “not viable”. This is, in my view, another thing Revit does “well” - it is incredibly opinionated. For better or worse it means if you fight its intended workflow, achieving what you want is difficult or impossible. On another note, care to share your experience at VW? I’m interested to hear anything you’re willing/able to share about your time there! I know someone on the NXOpen team who has spoken highly of that team/product.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I quite enjoyed my experience at VW! It was (and probably still is) a wonderful place to work. I have frankly never been more productive in my career. My team (and I got the impression that this was also the case for most teams) was very hands-off, just let people work. The employees are grown ups, so if they need to collaborate they can do so in an ad-hoc fashion instead of forcing them to do agile rituals. For most of my time there, I had exactly one scheduled meeting a week, you could call it weekly stand-up, and a lot of ad-hoc collaboration with my teammates. For people like me, who don't need and frankly chafe against the added structure of most agile methodologies, VW was amazing. I could just put on my headphones and code, and that's pretty much all I ever wanted. I ended up leaving because as much as I loved the workplace, I have pretty much 0 interest in the actual product. CAD is cool, and I like working on professional tools, but I have no interest whatsoever in architecture and design. I still wonder, though, if leaving VW was a mistake. If I ever find myself living in the DC metro, I will certainly reapply.
- sota_pop 2y ago
  Wow, sounds awesome! What types of projects did you work on for the platform/product? Since I’ve become very familiar with Revit’s API (and its shortcomings) I often wonder if I should consider a role on the actual Revit dev team helping to improve the actual product itself, but I have never contributed to anything like it. What industry did you land in?