Thursday, September 30, 2010

Why are plug-ins so important?

So, I just had a great lunch yesterday with some coworkers and a software rep for a PIM (project information management) solution. Part of our conversation touched on integration and interoperability across platforms and disciplines.

One really interesting point the rep made was that their goal was to enable people to interact with their program from whatever "home" program a user was familiar with. This really caught my attention...

We all struggle with the number of applications we all need to "master" now a days. In contrast, this idea of ubiquitous data access in a smaller subset of programs really offers some advantages in efficiency for the end users of software. It turns the traditional "hub and spoke" diagram most software providers show with their program as the "hub" a bit on its head. In this model, each "role" or person uses whatever program they need for their primary tasks, and can pull all the other data in other programs and visualize in their own thus making every program a "hub" and a "spoke" simultaneously.

What can I say, I like it! So, that is why plugins are so important in Revit. Those plugins are going to enable us to create or answer RFI's, see energy efficiency results from our engineers, check on the LEED submittal processes that are related to building elements, or who knows what else all within the comfort of our "home" program... Yummy. BlogBooster-The most productive way for mobile blogging. BlogBooster is a multi-service blog editor for iPhone, Android, WebOs and your desktop

Friday, September 17, 2010

Slight change of plans...

Since there are likely to be several sub-topics of this blog (categories, families, stairs & railings, etc...) I figured it would make more sense to break things up a bit. This particular page will instead be focused on the general discussion a whole, and topic specific posts will hop onto the appropriate page. Hopefully that will keep it a bit more organized as more posts get up there...