ModelMaker, Code Explorer Review.
Your reviewer was looking around for a modeling tool to map and refactor his legacy codes and decided to look at ModelMaker, Code Explorer but found it much lacking else instead...
ModelMaker: Making Toy Models
Let me take the story out of context. Suppose you are a vendor who writes a Modeling tool for a certain language, the code-parsers that you develop, should support every aspect of that language. So, you should support the latest features added since Delphi 7, such as nested types, generics, Delphi's equivalent of partial classes to name a few. Then, you need to also support refactoring, proper UML diagrams and so on. Because the language keeps getting updated, you would need to update your parsers to support the latest features...
Fast forward to the year 2010.It has been almost two years since Delphi 2009 was released (Delphi 2009 was released on Aug 25th 2008) and you should expect Delphi generics to be supported in ModelMaker when you import sources to ModelMaker. Ditto for the ModelMaker C# edition. It has been nearly 5 (five) years since C# 3.0 was released and ModelMaker does not support any of C# latest features in NET3.0. The end result is you can post nasty messages on ModelMaker newsgroup or ask for a refund or don't buy ModelMaker tools until they finish updating their code parsers to support the latest Delphi and C# features.
Their newsgroup was "dead" for two or so months, but the ModelMaker vendor did absolutely nothing about it, since it was on the same newsgroup as the Jedi newsgroups, which was hosted free-of-charge. It was also good that the ISP that hosted Jedi, ModelMaker and other newsgroups on that site did not receive a single cent for the newsgroup hosting. It was in a way, good for the ModelMaker vendor - many of the messages where from pissed-off customers and nasty complaints - and all removed now and since nobody else can see them, they would blindly assume the product works and then find 101 problems...
By the way, I commend the person who "generously" hosts the talkto.net newsgroups, that person must have woke-up from the Delphi delusion - after 3 or 4 years from setting up a server to host newsgroups, he had no money to upgrade the server, no time to update the server with the latest security patches, and when the server got hacked, and taken off-line, the best thing happened - the opportunity he had to charge the Jedi people, ModelMaker, Madshi vendor and others for money to support the server was all gone. Hosting a private server (at today's prices) would have costed around US$250 a month, excluding initial licensing costs. That person probably spent US$3,000 a year (US$250 * 12) or US$12,000 (3,000 * 4 years) for that "feel good feeling" and supposed respect from others. In reality, it was more like - most of the Delphi people are nothing but free-loaders and the person who hosted the newsgroup server "woke-up" found out he had no more money left to pay, and closed shop. It's a good thing in an ironic way - if you are doing some business and make no money (or losses) from it, it's time to move on. Back to the review -
The C# versions of their product, ModelMaker for C# and CodeExplorer for C# suffers from serious limitations that make their products almost useless. Almost every vendor in the world uses partial classes, nested types, and regions inside classes, and both ModelMaker and CodeExplorer would choke and either corrupt the C# class file or just give up. Now suppose the above mentioned feature was implemented into the C# 3.0 specification 5 amazing years ago - the ModelMaker vendor had 5 years to "update their C# parser" but after 5 years was not able to do so. Almost every year since 2005, the ModelMaker vendor was busy charging "upgrade" fees, and the same people would ask when these features would be supported. Now that Visual Studio 2010 is out and the C# language has been updated, don't be surprised that nobody uses ModelMaker for C# and CodeExplorer for C# because it does not support basic features in the C# language.
Concerns
This leads your reviewer to wrap-up this review with few notes:
1) Prior to the newsgroup being removed, the ModelMaker newsgroup was filled with complaints and won't buy until the ModelMaker/CodeExplorer is updated.
2) Since the last update for ModelMaker was on September 15th 2008 (two years ago), all the vendor was doing was nothing but just re-compiling or updating the integrations to use the latest version of Delphi and charging for upgrade fees.
If a respected vendor like ModelMaker tool does not update their code-parsers to use the latest Delphi grammar (and ditto with the C# versions), that means that either the vendor has burned-out all his money and started to leave the site as-is, and just charge upgrade fees (and no updates) or it is an indication of greater issue - nobody is buying his product anymore.
Your reviewer was looking around for a modeling tool to map and refactor his legacy codes and decided to look at ModelMaker, Code Explorer but found it much lacking else instead...
ModelMaker: Making Toy Models
Let me take the story out of context. Suppose you are a vendor who writes a Modeling tool for a certain language, the code-parsers that you develop, should support every aspect of that language. So, you should support the latest features added since Delphi 7, such as nested types, generics, Delphi's equivalent of partial classes to name a few. Then, you need to also support refactoring, proper UML diagrams and so on. Because the language keeps getting updated, you would need to update your parsers to support the latest features...
Fast forward to the year 2010.It has been almost two years since Delphi 2009 was released (Delphi 2009 was released on Aug 25th 2008) and you should expect Delphi generics to be supported in ModelMaker when you import sources to ModelMaker. Ditto for the ModelMaker C# edition. It has been nearly 5 (five) years since C# 3.0 was released and ModelMaker does not support any of C# latest features in NET3.0. The end result is you can post nasty messages on ModelMaker newsgroup or ask for a refund or don't buy ModelMaker tools until they finish updating their code parsers to support the latest Delphi and C# features.
Their newsgroup was "dead" for two or so months, but the ModelMaker vendor did absolutely nothing about it, since it was on the same newsgroup as the Jedi newsgroups, which was hosted free-of-charge. It was also good that the ISP that hosted Jedi, ModelMaker and other newsgroups on that site did not receive a single cent for the newsgroup hosting. It was in a way, good for the ModelMaker vendor - many of the messages where from pissed-off customers and nasty complaints - and all removed now and since nobody else can see them, they would blindly assume the product works and then find 101 problems...
By the way, I commend the person who "generously" hosts the talkto.net newsgroups, that person must have woke-up from the Delphi delusion - after 3 or 4 years from setting up a server to host newsgroups, he had no money to upgrade the server, no time to update the server with the latest security patches, and when the server got hacked, and taken off-line, the best thing happened - the opportunity he had to charge the Jedi people, ModelMaker, Madshi vendor and others for money to support the server was all gone. Hosting a private server (at today's prices) would have costed around US$250 a month, excluding initial licensing costs. That person probably spent US$3,000 a year (US$250 * 12) or US$12,000 (3,000 * 4 years) for that "feel good feeling" and supposed respect from others. In reality, it was more like - most of the Delphi people are nothing but free-loaders and the person who hosted the newsgroup server "woke-up" found out he had no more money left to pay, and closed shop. It's a good thing in an ironic way - if you are doing some business and make no money (or losses) from it, it's time to move on. Back to the review -
The C# versions of their product, ModelMaker for C# and CodeExplorer for C# suffers from serious limitations that make their products almost useless. Almost every vendor in the world uses partial classes, nested types, and regions inside classes, and both ModelMaker and CodeExplorer would choke and either corrupt the C# class file or just give up. Now suppose the above mentioned feature was implemented into the C# 3.0 specification 5 amazing years ago - the ModelMaker vendor had 5 years to "update their C# parser" but after 5 years was not able to do so. Almost every year since 2005, the ModelMaker vendor was busy charging "upgrade" fees, and the same people would ask when these features would be supported. Now that Visual Studio 2010 is out and the C# language has been updated, don't be surprised that nobody uses ModelMaker for C# and CodeExplorer for C# because it does not support basic features in the C# language.
Concerns
This leads your reviewer to wrap-up this review with few notes:
1) Prior to the newsgroup being removed, the ModelMaker newsgroup was filled with complaints and won't buy until the ModelMaker/CodeExplorer is updated.
2) Since the last update for ModelMaker was on September 15th 2008 (two years ago), all the vendor was doing was nothing but just re-compiling or updating the integrations to use the latest version of Delphi and charging for upgrade fees.
If a respected vendor like ModelMaker tool does not update their code-parsers to use the latest Delphi grammar (and ditto with the C# versions), that means that either the vendor has burned-out all his money and started to leave the site as-is, and just charge upgrade fees (and no updates) or it is an indication of greater issue - nobody is buying his product anymore.
1 comment:
Mike,
Did you ever browse the ModelMaker newsgroup before it went down?
Can you tell me what you see, I saw so many complaints and no-action on behalf of the ModelMaker tool vendor.
Tell me anyone who uses C# and does not use the features such as "Partial classes", and other C# language features that ModelMaker/CodeExplorer does not support.
When you structure your code to use Generics (in C# and Delphi), ModelMaker and CodeExplorer stops working.
Of course, you are welcome to think otherwise.
The next victim I am writing about is Sybrex/VersyPDF.
You are most welcome.
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