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

[Armin Faltl <armin.faltl@xxxxxx>]

David C. Kerber wrote:
> > >   Harder than having a proper library that allows me to focus on the
> > >   circuit design instead of these kinds of clerical tasks 
> > >       
> > that appear to
> >     
> > >   arise from an utter lack of understanding that human 
> > >       
> > beings do not like
> >     
> > >   to do mundane, repetitive tasks that are best suited for 
> > >       
> > the software
> >     
> > >   to take care of.
> > >       
> > And gEDA is better at doing the mundane, repetitive tasks 
> > than other systems. Once you have your processes set up, a 
> > single "make" can generate netlists, BOM, simulation results, 
> > printable schematics, typeset documentation...
> >     
>
> How long did it take you to learn make well enough to do this with it?
>   
I'm not John, but understanding make enough, to describe a linear or 
tree-shaped flow
requires reading of about 5-15 pages describing syntax and remebering 3 
basic things:

- to the left of the ":" in a rule is what I want to get from that rule 
(the target)
- to the right of the ":" are the ingredients
- the script-piece below the rule is the recipe, how to make the result 
out of the ingredients;
 usually a command or sequence of commands.

This can be cascaded ad infinitum.

All the complicated rest of make is about how to parametrize and 
generalise these
3-part rules and achieve behaviours that deviate from the simple priciples.

> How long does it take you to set up your processes for any given project?
>   
eventually depends on the project, but so far my geda makefile looks 
like this:

---------------------- cut here -------------------------
zip:
   zip lichttisch_`date -I`.zip *.sch *.net *.pcb *.gbr *.cnc
---------------------- cut again -----------------------

It has a single target named "zip" that depends on nothing.
The target does not create a file called "zip"  so it will always
invoke it's script when called.

So if I want to create the zip-file of todays snapshot for backup
I type 'make zip' Actually typing 'make' would be sufficient, since
the 1st target in a makefile is the default.

Make was developed to automate hierarchical builds, so it checks
the age of file(s) described by a target to the age of all ingredients
and invokes the corresponding build script, only if at least one of the
ingredients is newer than the target.
> But to a newbie, learning to use a tool effectively if its only power is at a command line, takes a loooooong time, and much referring to a  separate reference of some kind to find the needed command.  A gui, while it can be limiting to an expert, will often speed up that initial learning curve, especially if it's just a wrapper around a command-line or other interface, so the newbie can use it to learn the capabilities and commands that the command-line uses.
>   
This took me a few minutes to write. How long did you need to read and 
understand it? ;-)

Armin


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