just gate off certain features in lower-tier offerings
Quotejust gate off certain features in lower-tier offerings
Perhaps they've seen what we do with scopes that have that kind of tier gating.
Perhaps they've seen what we do with scopes that have that kind of tier gating.
That is not the point. The question is: what is the added value of Altium when (not if) KiCad offers similar functionality?
KiCad might appear to offer similar functionaly to Altium if all you ever do is fairly basic to mid level boards. But if you do very complex mid to higher end stuff, Altium is still streets ahead.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need. They’re perfectly adequate for everyday use in many cases, just not true pro use.
This isn’t to say that open source desktop apps can’t be best-in-class, but IMHO they rarely are, not in functionality, and most certainly not in usability. Quite different from the server stuff, where open source has managed to produce truly outstanding software, just to list one example.
That is not the point. The question is: what is the added value of Altium when (not if) KiCad offers similar functionality?
KiCad might appear to offer similar functionaly to Altium if all you ever do is fairly basic to mid level boards. But if you do very complex mid to higher end stuff, Altium is still streets ahead.That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need. They’re perfectly adequate for everyday use in many cases, just not true pro use.
This isn’t to say that open source desktop apps can’t be best-in-class, but IMHO they rarely are, not in functionality, and most certainly not in usability. Quite different from the server stuff, where open source has managed to produce truly outstanding software, just to list one example.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need. They’re perfectly adequate for everyday use in many cases, just not true pro use.
This isn’t to say that open source desktop apps can’t be best-in-class, but IMHO they rarely are, not in functionality, and most certainly not in usability. Quite different from the server stuff, where open source has managed to produce truly outstanding software, just to list one example.LibreOffice is just as good as MS Office. The problem is they both suck, and need huge amounts of work to make them truly fit for purpose.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need. They’re perfectly adequate for everyday use in many cases, just not true pro use.
This isn’t to say that open source desktop apps can’t be best-in-class, but IMHO they rarely are, not in functionality, and most certainly not in usability. Quite different from the server stuff, where open source has managed to produce truly outstanding software, just to list one example.LibreOffice is just as good as MS Office. The problem is they both suck, and need huge amounts of work to make them truly fit for purpose.No, it really isn’t. Literally my point: people claim it’s the same without understanding that it is not. Both are good enough for basic needs, but LibreOffice lacks a ton of advanced features used professionally, especially in business workflows. It supports automation in ways LibreOffice can’t dream of, and even where LibreOffice “does” support it, it’s not done with the consistency and reliability of MS Office. (An API is useless if it breaks with every other update…)
Remember this: just because it’s good enough for you doesn’t mean it’s good enough for everyone.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need.
Word especially is like a curse on humanity. That's why most serious document producers don't use it.
Word especially is like a curse on humanity. That's why most serious document producers don't use it. It would be hard for an alternative to be genuinely worse.
I can't speak for coppice, but I know a lot of professionals use Illustrator or the like.
I can't speak for coppice, but I know a lot of professionals use Illustrator or the like.Do you mean FrameMaker?
Illustrator is vector graphics tool, not sure how it can be Word's substitution...
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need. They’re perfectly adequate for everyday use in many cases, just not true pro use.
This isn’t to say that open source desktop apps can’t be best-in-class, but IMHO they rarely are, not in functionality, and most certainly not in usability. Quite different from the server stuff, where open source has managed to produce truly outstanding software, just to list one example.LibreOffice is just as good as MS Office. The problem is they both suck, and need huge amounts of work to make them truly fit for purpose.No, it really isn’t. Literally my point: people claim it’s the same without understanding that it is not. Both are good enough for basic needs, but LibreOffice lacks a ton of advanced features used professionally, especially in business workflows. It supports automation in ways LibreOffice can’t dream of, and even where LibreOffice “does” support it, it’s not done with the consistency and reliability of MS Office. (An API is useless if it breaks with every other update…)
Remember this: just because it’s good enough for you doesn’t mean it’s good enough for everyone.MS Office is utter garbage, not fit for purpose. Its not good enough for anything more than trivial uses. Word especially is like a curse on humanity. That's why most serious document producers don't use it. It would be hard for an alternative to be genuinely worse.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need.Mighty strong generalizations there, tooki. Perhaps you might reconsider exactly what you claim about others there?
I must say, I take serious umbrage at your claim that people like I have "no clue" – your emphasis – what professional use of such programs is.
I designed the first set of collectors cards for the Finnish Defence Forces in 1997, using Photoshop and Freehand. At the time, I was the webmaster there. Later, when running a company, I did some full stack web development stuff, and preferred Photoshop; and occasionally optimized artwork for use in official mailings etc, for which I typically used Adobe Illustrator.
I do not consider myself a graphic artist; I don't have the visual style needed for that stuff. I can do cards and icons, which don't need that much "artistry", and things that really interest me. I've had a couple of my oil pastels on display, but that's it; I could never do commissions or such. So, not an artist. I can definitely do the technical job, down to color separation, masks, and even custom rasterization if I need to. I've even taught a basic course on image processing (using Photoshop and Illustrator), although that was two decades ago. Most of my Photoshop work was taking proper artwork from a graphics artist, and optimize them for the task at hand (web, letterhead/watermarks, etc.).
All in all, I have a few years of professional Photoshop and Freehand/Illustrator use. I'm not much of an artist, only technically proficient.
Nowadays, I use GIMP and Inkscape. I can do everything I did in Illustrator and Photoshop, in GIMP and Inkscape, although the workflow is a bit different. For color separation and such, you do need additional (open source, possibly customized) tools.
Yes, the free tools lack spit and polish, and don't have the support and documentation behind them that Adobe can provide. Many common tasks are much more efficient with Photoshop and Illustrator, so anyone using them for their everyday workflow, definitely should consider using them. But if you only have GIMP and Inkscape, you can still achieve the exact same end results.
(Now, I really do have a bit of an esoteric career background... so, if you suspect I'm embellishing the details, do contact me via PM or email, and I can provide you with sufficient information for you to verify all of the above.)
I can't speak for coppice, but I know a lot of professionals use Illustrator or the like.Do you mean FrameMaker?
Illustrator is vector graphics tool, not sure how it can be Word's substitution...FrameMaker has been heavily used for at least 3 decades. It keeps the kind of strict discipline between form and content that serious document producers are looking for. These days I see organisations using a variety of tools, like XMetal, that keep their raw documents in some kind of XML form. Interestingly, most of the people in big prganisations who aren't involved in churning out externally facing documents don't even realise that is how their organisation works.
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need.
Besides, where did you get the idea that I was talking about you? In my original post, I wasn’t referring to anyone in this thread. And your reply itself points out that Gimp and Inkscape can’t do what the Adobe tools do (“color separation and such”).
That reminds me of the people who say that LibreOffice is a complete substitute for MS Office, or that GIMP and Inkscape can replace Photoshop and Illustrator: they have no clue what professional use is, and that the open source apps don’t even begin to cover the specialized features professionals need.Besides, where did you get the idea that I was talking about you? In my original post, I wasn’t referring to anyone in this thread. And your reply itself points out that Gimp and Inkscape can’t do what the Adobe tools do (“color separation and such”).
1. Not everyone doing professional work needs CMYK color separation, or other features provided by Photoshop and not GIMP.
2. GIMP is not at feature-parity with Photoshop, no. Inkscape is not at feature-parity with Illustrator either. (The opposite is equally true for both pairs.) Saying they don't even begin to cover the features professionals need, is utter bullshit.
3. I often tell those interested in graphics arts on a computer that they can start with the freely available open source tools like GIMP and Inkscape: everything they can accomplish with expensive tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, they can achieve with other tools as well. I discourage piracy, and point out that artists suffer from that themselves.
4. I've even shown a not very computer literate person how simple it is to implement ones own filtering programs using various programming languages (I used NetPBM PPM format as the example, natively supported in GIMP), explaining the basic idea of chaining separate tools to achieve desired results, and ones own scripts (including extensions in Inkscape) to do something only oneself can imagine doing. There can be value in modifying ones tools, and although few artists decide to go that route, knowing it is possible is important. Similarly, it is important to not get stuck on the idea that you need specific tools to achieve a specific result or quality: it is not true at all.
5. I've shown, I hope, that I very definitely have a clue what professional use of these is.
I'm sorry, tooki, but your claim sounds exactly like someone enamored of their tools, or having assimilated the worldview of people fully enamored of their tools, and cannot imagine using any other tools to achieve the same task. I worked for years with people who had for example very strong opinions wrt. Freehand versus Illustrator, so much so as to yelling in meetings about it, so I'm familiar with the argumentation style.
I do know, however, how compelling those arguments are in the real world workplace. Not because they're right, but because they're so loud and persistent, and based on deep emotional convictions.