[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Re: gEDA-user: wishful UI

Hi All,
We can all agree that the current gEDA(Gschem/Gnetlist) need to accomodate more than just the netname attribute attached to a net. In fact, I would like to 
see that gEDA can process ANY attributes attached to a net in similar
fashion as it process ANY attributes attached to a symbol currently. And that Gnetlist front end will present similar functions to the backend Scheme procedures, so that different backends (Verilog, VHDL, Spice, GnuCap, SystemC, PCB, etc) Scheme 
procedures can decipher net attributes particular to that backend.
Note that I stress the "ANY" word above, because one of the most powerful features of gEDA is its architectural capabilities of supporting "ANY" attributes as "ANY" backend dictates. How the symbol and net attributes are handled should be up to the particular 
backend's Scheme procedure.

I am familiar with the gEDA codes (both the C and Scheme).  I can see
that it is not too difficult to add the "ANY net attributes" feature., since it fits 
similar pattern as processing of symbol's ANY attributes.  It is on my
list of "TO DO for gEDA", but we just don't have the time to do it yet. I am 
hoping someone will beat me to it.

Best Regards,
Paul Tan

-----Original Message-----
From: John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>
To: gEDA user mailing list <geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, Aug 13, 2010 5:09 pm
Subject: Re: gEDA-user: wishful UI


On Aug 13, 2010, at 5:49 PM, Stefan Salewski wrote:


On Fri, 2010-08-13 at 19:28 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:

I guess it would be no great deal for smart (but very busy) people
like Peter C. and DJ, to implement the basic concept. For people not
familiar with the internals of gschem and PCB like me it may take
very long...


I'm quite willing to teach people PCB internals, if it means having
more PCB developers.




In my opinion writing some basic documentation about the internal work
of PCB would be really a good idea. (I can remember that I looked at 
the
PCB source code about two years ago: I was very positive surprised 
about

the fact that the code was very compact, but I was not able to see the
basic concepts...)


The same problem applies to gschem/gnetlist. Unfortunately, some of our
developers take the attitude that dumbing down the (almost supernaturally productive) UI is the way to attract more developers. But from where I sit, the real problem is that the internals of gschem, gnetlist, and especially libgeda are poorly documented. This is especially problematic at the guile scripting interface (code for guile functions in C is pretty obscure). I've nibbled at this from outside, deducing function from behavior and writing some of my findings up, but it would really help if the experts would put in some effort 
here.
Developers who'd be attracted by a dumbed-down UI are exactly the folks I do not 
want to see working on gEDA.

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


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