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

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 8, 2011, at 1:22 AM, Stephan Boettcher wrote:

> 
> I do not see a conflict between GUI and make, the first ist a good way
> to make features of the second discoverable.

Only if each individual tool is *simple*. Complex menus make features *less* discoverable. Besides, if your use case doesn't correspond *exactly* to the necessarily limited imagination of the developer of a "feature", then that "feature" is just more fog, hiding the real "feature" you want, or wasting your time by making it difficult to discover that the "feature" is missing.

In other words, GUI scales just as badly as a discovery tool as it does as an automation tool. Therefore, adding capability should either involve:

1. More independent tools in the kit, or

2. *Less* GUI.

>  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.

But the design practices are incompatible. GUI is sensibly designed from the top down (from appearance), while a flexible toolkit needs to be designed from the bottom up (build fundamental capabilities first, compose "features" from them).

A Makefile often does much more sophisticated things than merely orchestrate a series of virtual button pushes.

> 
> gEDA and especially PCB suffer a lot from lack of discoverability.

PCB is more complex, so the scaling problem is more evident. It suffers from the related problem of being a grab-bag of GUI features without a solid foundation of clean, well-factored capabilities. gschem and gnetlist could be better too, but they're already unusually good by this measure.

> 
> 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.

I have the same experience. It relates to my main point here: GUI does not scale well for the automation of complex jobs.

---
John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.

This message contains technical discussion involving difficult issues. No personal disrespect or malice is intended. If you perceive such, your perception is simply wrong. I'm a busy person, and in my business "go along to get along" causes mission failures and sometimes kills people, so I tend to be a bit blunt.



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