Re: gEDA-user: gEDA just hit SlashDotOrg

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:45 AM, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote:

> On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:42:20 -0600, John Doty wrote:
>
>>> His judgement is pretty much dead on.  Many people on this list are
>>> openly hostile to Windows users,
>>
>> The only hostility I see is to the attitude:
>
> Yet, the rest of your post is a perfect example for general windows
> hostility.

Huh? It's not hostility to Windows, it's hostility to an approach to  
software that isn't at all unique to Windows. Windows is a latecomer  
to that approach. And, in fact, Windows doesn't force that approach  
on the user. The barriers are in the users' minds, not in the system.  
And that isn't unique to Windows, either.

Here, the big difference here between Windows users and Mac users is  
one person: Charles Lepple, who packages gEDA for MacOSX (hurray for  
Charles!). So, there are no complaints that gEDA is unfriendly to Mac  
users. That's all it takes.

The integrated GUI approach has its uses: I'm typing this in Apple  
Mail. But for less trivial jobs, it forces the user onto a low  
productivity track.

I'm hostile to bicycles with training wheels permanently attached.

>
>
>> We're not a programming team implementing what Marketing wants.  
>> We're a
>> bunch of computer-savvy users implementing what we intend to use.  
>> That's
>> our strength. That's why gEDA is different. That's why gEDA is a  
>> sharp
>> toolkit for the computer-savvy.
>
> It is remarkably blunt in certain aspects. Aspects, that are very
> relevant to EDA. Lack of backannotation

Is there any tool that *really* does backannotation well? I used a  
commercial one where the backannotation wasted more time than just  
doing the job by hand. I've heard similar complaints from others. But  
it's something we can work on. Dan's .eco file suggestion is a good  
one, because it could come from anywhere. My pins2gsch script is an  
effective backannotion tool when you don't need graphical  
connections. Dan's .eco file suggestion is a good one, because it  
could come from anywhere. For non-hierarchical schematics, attribute  
backannotation looks pretty simple. But this is another place I wish  
gnetlist was more transparent: if the back end could see the  
hierarchy, making a map that would help a backannotation script find  
the attributes would be trivial.

But I probably wouldn't use full backannotion in my flows anyway.  
Keep the "source files" clean, transform them into intermediates as  
needed. Good tools could do it either way.

> and a more than stony interaction
> with simulation tools are just two of them.

One problem is that the simulation tools don't play so nice. gEDA's  
advantage, though, is that it can work with any one of them.

Sounds like you want a schematic plug-in to gnucap. And then you'll  
want a schematic plug-in to PCB. Those wouldn't be bad things,  
especially if they used .sch format for the files. But let's keep  
gEDA's modular, flexible kit modular and flexible (there's even room  
for improvement here). A schematic plugin to bin/* is not the answer.

>
>
>> I wouldn't call Word easy to use. An extremely dull tool.
>
> No hostility here, nah...

Again, that applies equally well to OpenOffice. Nothing specifically  
to do with Windows. It's that you point and click all day to get  
something, when you should be letting the computer do most of the work.

The first computer I ever used was an IBM 1130 with the customary  
THINK sign atop the console. Think about what you want the computer  
to do, tell it how, and then let it do it. An old-fashioned idea, but  
still very effective.

>
>
>> But the nice thing about free software is that we can clone the
>> dull tool as OpenOffice
>
> Note, that ooffice wasn't free at all when conceived as staroffice.
> Giving it away for free was a last resort  marketing move to save the
> project from oblivion.

OK, how about Abiword? Or the KDE thing, whatever it's called.

>
>
>> I very much hope that gEDA does not evolve into a dull tool.
>
> I very much hope, evolution into a better EDA tool is not blocked by
> dogmatism.

What you consider "better", I, in many cases, consider worse.  
Inflexible, low productivity. There are plenty of dull EDA tools out  
there: why not just use of them them instead of dumbing gEDA down?

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




_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user