Re: gEDA-user: A little puzzled about the purpose of gschem

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 24, 2010, at 2:28 PM, Madhusudan Singh wrote:

>   I don't think it is a matter of skill.
> 
>   I am an engineer / scientist who is interested in what *works*.

So am I. That's exactly why I find gEDA so powerful.

> I am
>   paid to get a certain piece of work done (for the best possible design
>   in the shortest amount of time), not spend time working around
>   imperfections of certain pieces of software when better alternatives
>   might exist.

Failure to correspond to your prejudices is not imperfection.

> 
>   A smart person picks the best tool for the job (within the
>   constraints), not pick up an ideology and then waste time working
>   around imperfections in the current implementation of something
>   consistent with that ideology. I don't want to get preachy here because
>   there was a time when anything I used had to be open source (except for
>   stuff prescribed for classes).

I don't use gEDA because it is open source: I use it because it's an effective toolkit. Indeed, I sometimes use gschem to create symbolic circuit models for Mathematica, a very closed tool. Open is nice, but first I need *effective*. That's exactly what I get with gEDA.

> 
>   I was merely looking for a clarification after I had formed certain
>   negative first impressions.
> 
>   To me, it is obvious that pcb/geda is superior to eagle. But there is a
>   gap between the schematic drawing program (gschem) and the circuit
>   simulation that other competitors do not have.

A network of roads that can take you to an unlimited number of destinations is going to be more difficult to navigate than a single one-way street, at least until you're familiar with it.

> Since multiple circuit
>   iterations usually occur during the simulation period of the design
>   (long before it is laid out for a PCB), any extra time wasted in any
>   one of these steps has a multiplier effect on the overall time spent.
>   Professionally, that is unacceptable, regardless of my personal
>   inclinations, or ideologies.

Again, this doesn't happen when you have your flow set up in an efficient way, and gEDA is the very best EDA tool I've ever used at avoiding this problem. But you seem to *expect* low productivity, and you insist on using gEDA in a low productivity way.  You complain of ideology, but your approach seems extremely ideological to me.

I'm an astrophysicist: circuit design is a sideline. gEDA allows me to set up my processes for maximum automation, allowing me to do big design jobs as a part-timer. Much of this has to do with the way gEDA plays nicely with text tools, "make", tex, and other automatable parts of the software universe.

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
jpd@xxxxxxxxx




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