Revit doesn't have a fucking calculator.

I know Revit is supposedly capable of incredible things with databases and spreadsheets, but what kind of respectable engineering software doesn't have a goddamned calculator built into it?

Despite having an incredibly powerful calculator in it, the vast majority of people - even those who had used Autocad for quite a while, very rarely ever actually touched 'quickcalc', and there is a good reason for that:

The vast majority of people are incompetent when it comes to mathematics, engineering, and science.

This would appear to include the people at Autodesk responsible for 'developing' the electrical portion of Revit MeP.  The program looks and operates as if someone put together a list of electrical 'buzzwords' and shoehorned them into a database that they had developed for entirely different purposes.

They made a program that is the equivalent of what you would get if you were to describe a car to someone who had never seen one before - and then they built something based on that information.  You might get four wheels, doors, and a few other features, but you probably aren't going to have a car - at least not a functional one.

Instead, what you will be left with is a half-ass attempt to quantify something that far exceeds their understanding.  If you tossed a calculator to most people, they might look at it with an amused smile, (maybe type 'S8008', turn it upside down and show their co-worker), but despite having all of those buttons, it doesn't hold their attention because it doesn't 'do' anything.

Most people don't have one (or if they do, it's the scientific calculator they were required to get for high school or college math, never used, and is sitting in a box somewhere), don't know how to use one, and since most aren't actually doing any kind of engineering work, they won't ever need to.  You can obviously get calculator apps for phones - 'realcalc' is a decent free one, but there are plenty of others.

The calculator built into Windows is pretty formidable as well, and gets quite a bit of use - but this is no excuse for Revit not to have an integrated calculator, because having to switch out of a program to use the Windows calculator is annoying, and anything handheld doesn't have the interactive component (even a smartphone which could technically run calculations and then e-mail them to yourself).

There are also plenty of online programs for running calculations, conversions, and various other functions necessary for detailed electrical design work.  They vary from excellent, to so bad that they actually make Revit look good in comparison.  I tend to trust the ones that are aligned with widely recognized industry names - however, even then I don't take for granted that they didn't farm the programming out to someone else who (again) didn't have the actual understanding necessary for their program to be reliable.

Some of the simplest ones are the best - often programmed by people who might be amateur programmers, but who have real, practical experience, and a more intimate knowledge of the subject matter.  I'm a big fan of minimalist program interfaces that mask powerful tools (otherwise known as function over form), but even the best of these can have their limitations - especially if they were only designed to take into account very specific (or limited range of) conditions, and many are only intended to be for rough estimation.

They can also be horribly misleading if someone doesn't understand what they are supposed to actually accomplish.  For example - there are a number of programs online for sizing wire based on various of factors (distance, max voltage drop, minimum ampacity, .  However, many leave out key factors (most commonly minimum ampacity - which means that it might tell you a size that will give you acceptable voltage drop, but the size it is spitting out might be too small to handle the load that it is feeding).

Obviously someone who is intelligent, and paying attention can take this into account and size accordingly - or toss those programs, and find one that takes into account all of the factors that they need.  To the best of my knowledge, Revit has not attempted to address this - apparently it would've been too close to actually having an electrical design tool.  Now, this would be fine if someone told me 'this program is for slapping together half-ass drawings', but instead, I was told that this is the software that I'm using now for electrical engineering/design.

Unfortunately, at least in the humble opinion of someone who has been doing electrical engineering and design work for over a decade (in addition to having a wide variety of real-world experience with computer systems, electrical and mechanical systems, multi-axis motion, software, electronics, automotive, and industrial), it is sorely lacking in basic functionality.

The people responsible need to go fuck themselves.