Wow! With the length of the thread over at James Fee’s Spatially Adjusted blog, apparently developer support issues have really hit a nerve. I added my comments to the end of that long list, but thought I’d drop them here as well.
My thoughts:
ArcObjects
First off, I’m glad I have a system like ArcObjects to work with. Sure it’s got it’s issues, but really, it’s got a whole lot more functionality in there than anything else out there. Not to say that the open source gang is not catching up in terms of functional GIS, but there are not even close to a unified COM/.NET/Java API like ArcObjects. And some support issues are not going to make me think twice about choosing another platform. That said, we are consultants, so if the end users change, we will follow.
ERSI Developer Network
As far as EDN goes, it’s a godsend for consulting groups like ours. We typically have 2-3 medium size projects and one big kahuna project in the office. To support this sort of development, we need to have 3 or 4 SDE’s, running with different platforms and versions, multiple ArcIMS’s and multiple ArcGIS Servers. For the price, it’s the best deal for us. The only thing I’d like added to it would be developer versions of Desktop – it’s not like we do any production “gis” work, but it would be nice to not have to pay for full seats when they are just used by our clients to test the apps via Citrix prior to deployment.
ESRI Developer Support
My only real beef with ESRI support is that without going to DSG, the only “developer support” is for VBA. And the last time I looked into it DGS was a little spendy for what usually results in “Yes, you have found bug CQ394849″. What would be really helpful would be to able to search the known bugs list from your EDN account. I realize that no company wants to air their dirty laundry (or dirty code in this case), but it would be one way to placate a lot of developers. This may also cut down on the support load, as many times people can find the known issue, add their 2 cents to it, and never interact with the support staff – leaving them able to deal with solvable problems.
