Re: gEDA-user: gEDA just hit SlashDotOrg

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 9, 2009, at 11:09 AM, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote:

> On Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:01:30 -0600, John Doty wrote:
>
>>> 2. We need to provide a migration path -- in and out.
>>>
>>>
>>> Gnucap works fine, but there is a problem with the geda interface.
>>> Does anyone want to help?
>>
>> What's the problem you perceive?
>
> The most obvious obstacle in the migration path is the lack of  
> conversion
> tools.

With the exception of the flow from gschem to layout in another  
suite, which works radically well. How to generalize? Well, if you  
want to export schematics instead of just netlists and BOM's, a  
gnetlist back end needs access to all the schematic data, not just a  
subset. The barrier here is all of the unnecessarily hard-wired  
behavior in the gnetlist front end.

I'd still like to collaborate with you here: you seem to have  
penetrated the front end logic, while the back end is much simpler.  
Let's start to refactor gnetlist to make it even more flexible.

> There is no way to go to and from other EDA suites that play in
> the same league (eagle, kicad, protel98).

Foreign schematic to gEDA schematic requires either some new  
framework or a collection of individual tools. However, you can merge  
in a foreign netlist by parsing it, outputting a .tsv version, and  
using pins2gsch.

>
> In the context of the slashdot article: Gschem does not interface very
> well with gnucap. There is no student-proof to just simulate a  
> section of
> a schematic. Instead, it takes a rather tedious procedure just to  
> get the
> response of a LC filter.

The tools that do what you want are fritterware that doesn't scale  
well. While with gEDA I can check a project out from CVS, type  
something like "make ChainTest.out", have all the subcircuit netlists  
and stimulus files built, data reduction programs compiled, SPICE  
run, data reduced, output generated...

Now *that's* how you eliminate *real* tedious, productivity-sapping  
procedure. I don't even remember how all these machinations work, but  
I can read the Makefiles if I need to know.

>
>
>> The other common complaint that comes
>> from that direction is that gEDA is a toolkit, not an integrated tool
>> (but I say Hurray!).
>
> Carthaginem esse delendam?

Got the job done, didn't it? Does every EDA tool have to turn into  
fritterware for the computer illiterate? I'm grateful there's one  
that hasn't.

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




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