Forum behavior

Guys, I’ve been watching with interest and quietly for some time since I was alerted to some recent issues.

Since then I’ve seen many people helping, and being constructive, thank you, you know who you are.

However I’ve seen a small minority posting:

1. Pornography and NSFW posts
2. Admin – baiting
3. Rants, with no purpose other than to incite
4. Ridicule bordering on bullying

Are we going to let a couple of people ruin this for everyone? We put this forum here for us all to discuss the software, to help each other, not for a few people to commandeer for the personal entertainment. There are other places to put NSFW posts and rants, we should be professional on this forum.

We have to protect new users from abuse. We have to enforce the rules for everyone. Criticism is allowed and encouraged (prefer constructive criticism), but flagrant violation of the rules, and bullying of anyone cannot be tolerated. I have been a staunch defender of our open forum for years. Other OEM forums are closed, or non-existent, what does that say about the freedom that is offered here? Let’s respect our privileges or risk them being taken away.

If you want to respond to my plea for professionalism with some remarks about how the software has let you down, has personally screwed you out of house and home, mugged you and your brother, whatever, please don’t. The forum is for discussion, not for logging bugs. If you feel so strongly about the software (which is good), please try to actually do something constructive about the issue through official channels. Here is how.

1. First contact technical support, and report the problem. 800-343-7933. This works, I have followed many customers through the system. YES, I believe like all technical support that it is far from perfect, but at least start here so you can get your call logged and have something to whine to me about. If you don’t like to call, use this form: http://hexagonmetrology.us/contact-us.
2. If you do not receive the timely response you desire, call your sales representative. They will help.
3. If all these fail for a specific issue you have, PM me telling me what happened in technical support, who your sales rep is, and if you entered a contact request. I will follow up with each and make sure the system is working for you and for everyone. Allow me time, I do have a day job, and I'm just one person.
4. If after all that, you still don't like the response you are getting, fill out the customer survey here with your experiences: http://hexagonmetrology.us/contact-us/customer-satisfaction-survey . It is logged and reviewed.

Thanks for your professionalism in advance, please help me make this a better place.

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Brian Gudauskas over 13 years ago

I'll do my best answering your questions.

Question 1: This is one of those questions that I lose no matter which way I answer. If I say I'm influential, then I get flamed when people want stuff, I get PM's for technical support, and then flamed when I can't keep up with them (SMA or not), and torched in general. If I say I'm not influential, then I get flamed for being a loser, and torched for how I can't help. Let's just say I'm influential enough to be heard.
Question 2: Spread out all over the world (this is necessary to handle the global needs of the software). Many are at our factories, or collect in groups in various software development offices worldwide.
Question 3: Honestly, I think the communication amongst coders is good. I think they have a great system of code writing, check in and out, and a good problem reporting system. Of course it's not perfect, nothing is.
Question 4: Bear in mind, it is IMPOSSIBLE to test every combination and permutation of computer (thousands's), video card (hundreds), drivers (tens of thousands), service packs (a few), CMM's (hundreds), controllers (tens to hundreds), sensors (hundreds), firmware (hundreds), and features (hundreds). Did I miss any? Do some quick math on that, and you see it's impossible. However, we do test MANY different ways. I can't detail them all here, but I'll give some examples. We test online, on every product that ships from a factory, and offline. Testing is done by coders (each coding change is tested), dedicated development testers, dedicated AE's that work for Wilcox who test applications, my group (applications engineers not in the software group), factory engineers for every hardware product including sensors, and our customer beta testers. We also have automated testing routines as well that run batteries of tests in constant loops. We have testing protocols that are run on every version of PC-DMIS that are huge. I'm sure I didn't hit on every test or tester, but that's a quick list.

PC-DMIS runs nearly any device, can do nearly any measurement, and is pretty intuitive. It's not easy being all of those things at once. But as I always say, it's something we strive for, it's what our customers (as a whole, all together) ask us to do.

-Brian

Brian.

How much influence do you have over the coders and their bosses?
Are coders under the same roof or they spread out all over the world?
How good is the communication between the coders? Do you know?
How do you test the software before it is released? Online, offline or both and by whom?

Just curious.
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Brian Gudauskas over 13 years ago

I'll do my best answering your questions.

Question 1: This is one of those questions that I lose no matter which way I answer. If I say I'm influential, then I get flamed when people want stuff, I get PM's for technical support, and then flamed when I can't keep up with them (SMA or not), and torched in general. If I say I'm not influential, then I get flamed for being a loser, and torched for how I can't help. Let's just say I'm influential enough to be heard.
Question 2: Spread out all over the world (this is necessary to handle the global needs of the software). Many are at our factories, or collect in groups in various software development offices worldwide.
Question 3: Honestly, I think the communication amongst coders is good. I think they have a great system of code writing, check in and out, and a good problem reporting system. Of course it's not perfect, nothing is.
Question 4: Bear in mind, it is IMPOSSIBLE to test every combination and permutation of computer (thousands's), video card (hundreds), drivers (tens of thousands), service packs (a few), CMM's (hundreds), controllers (tens to hundreds), sensors (hundreds), firmware (hundreds), and features (hundreds). Did I miss any? Do some quick math on that, and you see it's impossible. However, we do test MANY different ways. I can't detail them all here, but I'll give some examples. We test online, on every product that ships from a factory, and offline. Testing is done by coders (each coding change is tested), dedicated development testers, dedicated AE's that work for Wilcox who test applications, my group (applications engineers not in the software group), factory engineers for every hardware product including sensors, and our customer beta testers. We also have automated testing routines as well that run batteries of tests in constant loops. We have testing protocols that are run on every version of PC-DMIS that are huge. I'm sure I didn't hit on every test or tester, but that's a quick list.

PC-DMIS runs nearly any device, can do nearly any measurement, and is pretty intuitive. It's not easy being all of those things at once. But as I always say, it's something we strive for, it's what our customers (as a whole, all together) ask us to do.

-Brian

Brian.

How much influence do you have over the coders and their bosses?
Are coders under the same roof or they spread out all over the world?
How good is the communication between the coders? Do you know?
How do you test the software before it is released? Online, offline or both and by whom?

Just curious.
Cancel
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