Re: gEDA-user: weird names in PCB part library

[Karel Kulhavý <clock@twibright.com>]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 10:04:25AM -0400, Stuart Brorson wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> I don't want to upset any applecarts here, so forgive my point if
> it is not PC.  
> 
> One of the funky things about PCB is precisely that it has two footprint
> libraries, one of them this M4 based [1] "automatic footprint generator",
> and the other a more-or-less standard set of footprint files.  
> 
> Perhaps back in the stone age, when PCB was written for the 
> Altair 8800^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Atari [2], generating symbols on the fly
> from an M4 macro was a good idea in order to save space memory.  Now,
> however, it strikes me as a weird relic of the past which can only
> frighten users away, encouraging them to continue hiding under the
> skirts of commerical layout software vendors.  

I think that's a good idea - but provided that
1) they can call the macros from PCB library so they could say for example
DIL 16 300 and tweak the various parameters as pin ring thicknesses etc.
2) the library would automatically display documentation for the relevant
macro
3) possibly also there were a preview into which they could enter the
params and see the result
4) And the documentation would apply also on the footprint= attributes.

Cl<
> 
> If I had my druthers, we'd deprecate that entire M4 symbol library, and
> move to the file based library.  Eventually, we'd kill the M4 library
> altogether.  
> 
> Any benefit of using an M4 script to generate symbols can be
> replicated using Perl or Python.  M4 should be banashed.
> 
> MHO only.  :-)
> 
> Stuart
> 
> 
> [1]  I'm not gonna rant about M4, except to note that it is a scripting
> language based upon Lisp.  (Talk about cognitive dissonance!)  Perhaps
> this made sense on old Symbolics lispms [3], but today should only be
> allowed to hide shamefully away deep in the bowels of the GNU make
> system.  It should never appear anywhere near a user, for fear that
> they might be frightened away and never come back.  Again, MHO. 
> 
> [2]  Historical humor reference.  For those too young to remember:
> http://www.cis.usouthal.edu/faculty/daigle/project1/1975malt.htm
> 
> [3]  Another ancient historical reference.  FAQ is here:
> http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/lisp/lispm-faq-and-history.html
> 
> > 
> > The names signify the new (no ~) and old (~) style libraries.
> > The old libraries use M4 macros and are update with make;
> > the new libraries are simply element files in a directory hierarchy.
> > 
> > harry
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Karel Kulhav=FD" <clock@twibright.com>
> > To: <geda-user@seul.org>
> > Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 7:39 AM
> > Subject: gEDA-user: weird names in PCB part library
> > 
> > 
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > PCB 20040530 library has different categories. Some of them are
> > > in the form "name" and some "~name". Why is it this way? It looks
> > > a bit weird.
> > >
> > > Cl<
> > 
> > 
>