Outside The Box blogs, Autodesk University anecdotes, articles, blog digests, and product news in chronological order. See Articles for the same material by subject.
Like that day almost 50 years ago, could today be the day that ObjectARX has died?
There have been a flurry of posts (http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=652855) in the ObjectARX discussion group about problems downloading the new ObjectARX 2009 SDK. At first I dismissed the problems as new release hiccups, and expected things to get resolved in short order. Seeing that there were no new complaints this morning, I headed over to https://www.autodesk.com/objectarx to download the new ObjectARX 2009 SDK. Instead of the new ObjectARX 2009 SDK, I received the following:
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This Autodsys press release (http://www.tenlinks.com/news/PR/autodsys/022208_accelicad2008_v3.htm) made me chuckle. Their IntelliCAD based AcceliCAD now supports custom entities, announces the press release. “Instead of creating custom objects as is necessary in some other CAD packages the application developer can instead use the primitives already built into the program such as LINEs, ARCs, CIRCLEs, and POLYLINEs.” Hmmm, that sounds an awful lot like blocks in AutoCAD – a feature AcceliCAD has surely supported since its inception.
The press release continues, “That means there is no need to define grip points or editing operations for the entities because those functions are already built into AcceliCAD."
ObjectARX programmers have been able to create custom objects in AutoCAD for years. One of the most common reasons for creating a custom object is to “define grip points or editing operations”. Otherwise, blocks work just fine in most cases.
One of the defining characteristics that distinguish humans from computers is our ability to act irrationally. Our biological computer system is capable of interjecting an otherwise logical thought process with random perturbations that often result in completely unpredictable outcomes. Looked at in the abstract, this is the essence of how we escape the shackles of destiny and turn an otherwise mundane march of time into a serendipity of human experience.
In practical terms, it’s our ability to make mistakes that gives us supremacy over mere electronic circuits. If we were simply pre-programmed machines, we would be no better, and perhaps no different, than a computer. By making mistakes, we learn. By taking risks, we discover. By challenging and disregarding what is already known, we learn what is not.
And that, my friends, is why maps are evil (http://www.news.com/Is-GPS-liability-next/2010-1033_3-6226346.html).