Re: gEDA-user: gEDA just hit SlashDotOrg (why live CD wouldn't work)

[Bert Timmerman <bert.timmerman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tibor and all,

On Sun, 2009-08-02 at 07:11 +0200, igor2 wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, evan foss wrote:
> 
> >You know the mechanical people have a livecd or I think it is dvd now.
> >Perhaps we should have an electronics live disk of some kind?
> 
> For a few semesters I was teaching gschem/pcb for undergrads. In the very
> first semester I tried with live cd (one I built myself) but it didn't
> work out as good as I expected. Reasons for this, in my opinion, are
> little issues: some seemingly unimportant convention of windows that
> windows users are so got used to that they do not want to switch to
> anything else, even if what they are currently using is the worst possible
> way of doing that thing. Some examples (and possible solutions):
> 
> - window manager; there are ways to make the live cd run a very similar
> window manager that windows has, but it will never be the same. Any little
> difference will annoy windows users.
> 
> - command line; most of windows users believe if you need to type commands
> or you see a prompt, that's the sign you are doing something wrong. On
> this, xgsch2pcb helped a lot but...
> 
> - ... but "these are separate programs, tools are not integrated, omg,
> this will be very complicated how could i ever learn this?" Really, this
> was one of the big surprises for my students, that doing different tasks
> can be best achieved by using different tools. And this is not even about
> hjaving back annotation, it's purely about having everything in one big
> window. I am rather sure if anyone would come up with a tool that
> integrates xgsch2pcb, gschem and pcb into a single window with tabs,
> these users won't ever notice they are separate programs even if mouse
> commands are different in each window.
> 
...
<more stuff deleted here>

Here is my EUR 0.02 on the subject:

I think Fritzing is a better suited app for the undergrad windoze
peoples.
With Fritzing they can have a schematic, breadboard and final proto pcb,
all in one window with tabs, using combined parts, containing symbol,
footprint and breadboard part artwork.
Add a toporouter for the pcb part and you have outdone most of the
competition.
The concept is very appealing, maybe someday a gFritzing port will be
made :)

OTOH, It is a single type of workflow, no simulation or deviation
possible.

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.



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