Topic: AutoLISP and money?

[ifncdylan]

I work in AU and there's a lot of talented drafties and engies out here, but almost nobody in the industry with a knack for coding. Coming from a programming background into CAD work with no knowledge of CAD (or even drafting/engineering) whatsoever, I have written some tools for our company to use which have, no joke, saved thousands of man hours and probably millions of dollars. Hell, just one of the scripts I wrote saves 5-30mins every time it is used, and it's used over 500+ times in every drawing we use.

I still pump out all of my required drafting work (and more, thanks to LISP of course..), alas, I'm still working for the same pay, I haven't even seen a bonus or a thankyou for it, it's left me wondering, how do your LISP skills translate to cash dollars? Are you simply using LISP to make your job easier, or is LISP a part of your role and do you get paid for it? Is there demand in the world for LISP programmers? Have you been promoted or given a pay rise based on your LISP skills?

In my old (non-CAD) programming world, if we created a routine that saved 10 seconds on a task that was repeated 100 times, we'd figure out 100 x 10 seconds x $ per second saved and then charge accordingly; even if the routine took only 5 minutes to create, if it saved 5 million minutes a year, you wouldn't be selling it for $10. That same thing doesn't seem to apply to AutoLISP, even though the potential for automation in the industry is overwhelming. There are a tonne of free scripts available, but it takes a proper programmer to fit them into your workflow.

A great example I have seen is a tool I'm provided by one of our network carriers. It's a horribly buggy VLX which constantly errors out, has no trapping whatsoever, mangles your environment variables unless it's used perfectly - you can't even press escape during routines or it will corrupt itself, and this is a multi-billion dollar enterprise whom requires you use this tool for every job. I've been instructed several times to 'start again because the file is probably corrupt now'. Did someone get PAID to write that trash as a software company, or was it just some AutoCAD guy in his spare time? The way it errors out, you tend to think the latter.. in which case, what's wrong with the world? AutoLISP (visual lisp especially) has so much potential for improvement.

[nobody]

It's a difficult question to answer. I've been asking it for years. Company I'm with is cool enough to reward efforts to help automate tasks and recognize going above and beyond but my personal experience as both a .net developer and purchaser of many plugins for multiple autodesk applications is that coding reinforces the skills of the designer and provides designers with unique opportunities to solidify their positions both individually and as a team player, it doesn't necessarily give the designer the ability to negotiate higher pay than, say the resident designer that's been with the company for years. 

In the end pay is about negotiation and risk.  Will Smith ventured for 50 mil to be in independence day 2 and they simply found an excuse to not use him. Oh well right, he's still made multiple millions on negotiations he was successful with. It's part of the risk, and gain.  If you feel your time and efforts are making your company money and you aren't adequately compensated consider simply presenting it as humbly as you can from a team and company perspective to negotiate some sort of recognition or compensation.  Perhaps it's an opportunity to point out the lack of recognition for efforts in a company and you can talk to hem about heading up a solution for that yourself?       

One thing I commonly see in the coding community though, not saying you are doing it, is ego's getting in the way of real evaluation and consideration of value to a company. True, we write commands that save people a ton of time, and likely leads to value, but saving that money isn't even possible if the guys above aren't getting the work in the first place.  With that perspective, the coder would have never even had the opportunity to code without them giving us opportunity by working so hard to keep clients / get work. Without appearing ungrateful, I'm sure you can present your case and even offer solutions to improve areas you think your company lacks (such as an achievement or recognition program for going above and beyond). While this may not pay off directly now, it will go a long ways through one's career.

Good luck!

[ifncdylan]

Some wise thoughts. I think every AutoCAD user would benefit from a quick understanding of programming logic. If you are able to intelligently perform the logic behind the design position, then understanding programming logic shouldn't be such a stretch. Some of the most talented designers & engineers I know wouldn't have the first clue how to write a basic macro script; although in saying that, if they put time towards learning that, would they be as talented as designers/engineers to begin with? I guess we all have our niches.

I work in a small company, so there's not exactly promotion opportunities around here. However, I really enjoy doing the LISP side of things. I used to work in a sales position and we would close deals for software that would save mere seconds per operation by crunching the numbers and presenting a proposal to the company that our software would make them money by saving time - it worked really well, and that was just saving a few hundred bucks here and there.

Given the fact that many large design companies work with very large budgets, with the kind of efficiencies deliverable by LISP, I'm left bewildered by the fact there isn't a single LISP company in the world - just freelancers. Surely there is some money to be made there

[hugha]

I'll hazard your company doesn't sell code so your entire drafting department is viewed as a cost.  Your efforts in reducing that cost can be overlooked because unlike the sales team who may be incentivised by commissions there may be no mechanism in place to recognise innovation in the back ofice.  You've been in sales so maybe your job is to sell that concept to a complacent or sales-focussed management.  Smaller firms can have odd ideas 

Also, look beyond ALISP.   While it's the scripting language of choice within ACAD there is the adjoining universe of .NET (C# or VB) to exploit and help integrate your DOCS to the broader IT requirements of the business. Chat to your corporate IT department - or work towards setting it up and remember that the accounting department is where Excel is (mis)used for just about everything.    

Good luck. 

[johne]

Hi ifncdylan,

Your post really resonated with me. Similar to you I also work in civil engineering (Perth, AU) as a designer, and have been coding for about 12 years. I started out with LISP and moved on to C#.net about 3-4 years ago. Very similar to you I have created routines that save thousands of man-hours (I even created a log routine for usage and linked it back to a spreadsheet to calculate a true and accurate time saving calculation). I've pretty much created a routine for every step, from drawing creation to digital signing and a lot of design routines that interface with other design software, again saving hundreds of hours and importantly removing human error.

Over the last few years I've asked your same questions to myself over and over.....and don't see a big difference in my pay nor any real appreciation for the work (often done in my own spare time, just because I love learning and writing code. Not just c#, but other languages like swift). Don't get me wrong I do pretty well, and it's probably the one factor thats stopping me from switching to programming as a career.

I've thought about trying to market my skills externally but come to the conclusion that most companies probably;
a) Don't realise the potential for the amount of time and money that can be saved (I probably wouldn't have believed what was possible until I actually wrote it  )
b) Have in-house designers/drafters that handle this stuff....and as you eluded sometimes poorly.
c) If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

I'd love to create solely career out of what i can do through AutoCAD with .NET (and LISP) but really struggle to see a massive market, which is probably why there are just a few freelance coders as you've pointed out.

I've also never thought about it from Area51Visitors point of view regarding having the work in the first place to be able to provide routines, and I guess it makes sense. However I'd also say that if it wasn't for the routines you and I (and everyone else) write then companies wouldn't be able to be as competitive and provide quality error free work.

I'd also highly recommend what hugha said in learning .NET. It's truly amazing and easier to get into than you might think, it opens up a whole world of ideas. I code almost everything in C#.NET now, unless its a quick and dirty one-off routine.

Anyway just my thoughts on it.....Best of luck.

[rvhwlc]

these types of things are better handled financially in bonus type of pay.. if your company agrees. companies have more battles than you think in dealing with tax burdens, economic uncertainties, restrictions and other mandatory legal obligations... don't make it harder on them to provide the basic opportunity to sit in a chair and receive a paycheck every friday... if you're hired to code, then code, regardless of statistic of man hours saved... if the measure is enough to bring up to manager then do so and discuss it... be humble and reasonable and respectful and maybe it will work out..

[MickD]

Hi ifncdylan,

CAD dev is a pretty narrow field over here and 'any' work is hard to come by. I've been freelancing for over 5 years now and apart from my own CAD related app, 95% of my work is web dev. I get some work doing upgrades for new CAD versions and bug fixes on some old in-house legacy code and I have quoted on some large projects which never came to fruition due to funding (everyone has a great idea!).

Judging from your adequate database skills you would be a great fit for web development though and if you want to pursue a career in dev that may be they way to go.
You can still specialise in CAD related work, just advertise yourself as a solutions provider for the company infrastructure such as CMS and other document management systems, online time keeping and task management etc.
This way you get to do both, you set up their content servers and website and you get to integrate the CAD applications with it.
You also have the chance to work outside of the CAD/engineering field as well and it pays well. Not everyone wants a Wordpress site, and quite often that's the last thing they need!

There's a lot to learn but it's fun, if you ever want to chat feel free to pm me.
Good luck!
Mick

[ifncdylan]

Thanks Mick for your kind words. I did come from a web development background, working extensively with html/php/css/js and various other fads over time, times have sure changed lately with HTML5 though. I got into the drafting work as a direct jump from doing business networks/systems, although I still take care of the business networks and systems, so that takes up a fair amount of time too. I do a few web development projects from time to time which is good for some bonus income, but they're mainly back-end stuff, I'm not much of an artist when it comes to HTML.

After writing a whole tonne of AutoLISP stuff in between doing jobs (you know, see an opportunity to make a script, make one!), I'm running out of stuff to do that isn't what I would consider an actual programming project, and there's not really scope in our budgets for us to be doing programming projects, but I still really enjoy writing code for AutoCAD automations, but whenever I think about going out to freelance it, I'm thinking of people like Lee Mac who has been a major inspiration to my code and I would rather people pay him to do it, since I'm pretty sure he would floor me every time in value for money when it comes to writing LISP.  It's a shame there isn't a market for the service, so there's no local places to work for! I guess it's a labor of love after all.

Still, I'm sure that given a proper sales strategy, AutoLISP development could be worth some serious coin. Getting to that point, however... well, it'd probably take more than just me!

Hi ifncdylan,

Your post really resonated with me. Similar to you I also work in civil engineering (Perth, AU) as a designer

I've thought about trying to market my skills externally but come to the conclusion that most companies probably;
a) Don't realise the potential for the amount of time and money that can be saved (I probably wouldn't have believed what was possible until I actually wrote it  )
b) Have in-house designers/drafters that handle this stuff....and as you eluded sometimes poorly.
c) If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

I'd love to create solely career out of what i can do through AutoCAD with .NET (and LISP) but really struggle to see a massive market, which is probably why there are just a few freelance coders as you've pointed out.

I've also never thought about it from Area51Visitors point of view regarding having the work in the first place to be able to provide routines, and I guess it makes sense. However I'd also say that if it wasn't for the routines you and I (and everyone else) write then companies wouldn't be able to be as competitive and provide quality error free work.

Yep, you said it! From what I can tell, most places are just using an assortment of LISP scripts collected from around the internet, sometimes tweaked to their needs, probably sometimes better than others, but I don't think many have scripts which are written specifically for their company by someone who understands the business requirements.

Area51Visitor is correct in saying that you need the work before you can have the routines, although once you have the work and it's a steady flow of repeatable actions, you can profit from time-saving routines, and in many areas that people wouldn't traditionally consider, like you say. Browsing through file dialogs which don't default to the folder you want - just make some simple command to auto-input your desired folders - one for common blocks folder, one for common xrefs folder - use it every time you want to attach a block or xref and save yourself the time browsing to the folder!

Assuming it takes you even just 5 seconds to browse to the folder, not having to do that has a positive mental effect as you feel streamlined in the process, so it inherently leads to a happier employee - nobody likes doing monotonous tasks like browsing to the same folder 100000 times in their career.

I think there's potential in it, maybe even as a side-business contracting to design firms to provide custom solutions for their drafting processes. I think there are a couple of factors inhibiting it, such as the relatively low confidence that many old-school CAD users have in AutoLISP to do things automatically without input and of course the fact that many firms are very reluctant to give out their DWGs which contain all their intellectual property. But given a proper agreement, that shouldn't be an issue! If only I knew how to run a business.

I'm going to look at the .NET stuff, not least because I do have some experience with .NET programming, but the debugging and object access in .NET is probably far easier, especially for someone from an heavily object oriented background. Learning to do things in sequentially evaluated brackets has been fun, though!

[hugha]

I'm going to look at the .NET stuff, not least because I do have some experience with .NET programming, but the debugging and object access in .NET is probably far easier, especially for someone from an heavily object oriented background. Learning to do things in sequentially evaluated brackets has been fun, though!

In a previous life (a VERY long time ago) I wrote a fair amount of custom ALisp for clients and as a sideline attempted to sell ALisp utilities such as prettyprinters and debugging aids which despite being immensely satisfying to develop were commercial flops because of the lack of

• code protection
• an internet
• a market once VLIDE arrived

Since then I've wondered whether there was a market for ALisp packages as it does get much closer to the metal than the VBA (that came and went) and now .NET, the current elephant in the opposite corner.

Go for .NET as fast as you can.  Given you're across JS you'll find the C# syntax easier to grok and fortunately that is the ascendant syntax. Not much wrong with VB but C# is my preference.  My reasoning is that .NET ticks the boxes for

• corporate IT acceptance where MSIs are expected
• access to mainstream libraries
• access to accepted databases

and onandonandon. 

Visit the Autodesk Exchange and see what has been put up there for free - and for sale.