Re: gEDA-user: Power users us normal users, a conflict?

[Stephan Boettcher <boettcher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

RubÃn GÃmez Antolà <lobo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi again:
>
> El 08/04/11 01:30, Peter Clifton escribiÃ:
>> On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 16:00 -0600, John Doty wrote:
>>> On Apr 7, 2011, at 3:06 PM, RubÃn GÃmez Antolà wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You are right but, what about the users?
>>>
>>> I *am* a user.
>
> I'm too.

Both of you now pushed some users aside somehow, one calling the GUI
users _consumers_, the other calling CLI users _power users_.

I do not see a conflict between GUI and make, the first ist a good way
to make features of the second discoverable.  John wants to make sure
that the make-power is not compromised for the sake of the integrated
GUI.  But that should not discourage development in that area.

>>> gEDA is software that caters to the needs of users. But
>>> it's not for passive *consumers* of software. There are plenty of
>>> other tools for them. I sincerely hope that gEDA's power and
>>> productivity are never abridged to make it more palatable to
>>> consumers.
>
> John, I'm not attack the powerful of gEDA, I'm really agree with the
> multiple pieces of powerful software that compounds it, and I love too
> the posibilty of use makefiles, but...
>
> I tell you a short history: I have a friend, he is really good in
> electronics and yes, he uses other comercial apps (and he's testing
> Qucs). I try to come him with us, but, stop, if I tell him to need to
> learn Bash, Makefiles, Gnuplot and other "esotheric" languages... Âoh,
> wait! He only wants to do some electronics work.

He cannot be really good, when we stays in the GUI forever. At least not
efficiently.  An expert in any field needs to use learn the tools of his
trade, or hire personel that does.

None of the languages you quoted are esotheric.  Users of commercial
tools learn more esotheric scripting languages to achieve what open
tools can partly achieve with these non-esotheric tools.  These
non-esotheric tools are useful for all kinds of productivity boost
besides eda.

> Who is wrong? Possibly anyone, then, what about do a easy curve of
> learning? Why we have to lost a potentially users which should
> contribute in some way to gEDA? For a leak of a good interface* to do
> in a easy way the work? I say no. Try to tell him about doing some
> makefiles and, definitively all lost, we and they.

gEDA and especially PCB suffer a lot from lack of discoverability.
There a powerful features in PCB that are inaccessible from the GUI, and
those features that are accessible do not provide hints how to access
them from scripts.  And AFAIK there is still no complete list of all
actions available.

I do not believe that a GUI frontend to gaf, pcb, spice is the way to
go.  That prevents dicoverability.  My productivity with proprietary
tools always got a boost as soon as I learned how to call the components
individually.  This was not always easy to discover.

gschem modes, like emacs modes may be a good way forward.  If you target
simulation, provide a menu that highlights spice attributes, and spice
components, with descriptive names.  Just make sure you can switch to
different modes on the same schematic, to use what is left of
multi-target capabilities in gschem.

-- 
Stephan


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