Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure

[Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 5, 2006, at 11:50 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On Dec 5, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Adrian Nania wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > I agree with Ales -- a Windows port would open the floodgates to  
> > > hords
> > > of whining clueless fools.  Why should we subject ourselves to that?
> > > Supporting the clueful users (and there are quite a few) is  
> > > already a
> > > big job which we do exclusively for fun. Better to keep the  
> > > barrier to
> > > entry a little high since it's not fun to support the clueless --
> > > particularly without any compensation.
> >
> > As you put it here, gEDA project must accessible to a handful of
> > software developers only. Maybe I am wrong to suspect the main  
> > audience
> > for this tool must be on the hardware developing side. You're being
> > funny to name anyone else clueless fools.
>
>   Adrian, your assumption that all hardware developers are Windows  
> users is incorrect.  I'm not even sure it's in the majority  
> anymore, at least amongst hardware developers who know anything at  
> all about computers.  None of the hardware people that *I*  
> associate with use Windows.  None.
>
>                  -Dave

I suppose that since I started this thread, I should chime in.

I am a hardware developer, and since I no longer work for a Big  
Company that uses Unix-based tools, I use Windows.  (My OS preference  
is Mac OS X.)

As a hardware guy, I've often been frustrated with my attempts to  
build software from source on the various Unix and Linux boxes I've  
used.  There's always a dependency that's missing or the wrong  
version.  At my previous job, I sat across from the Linux Guy who was  
usually able to help me sort things out (my hardware had to run on  
Linux boxes), but truly, how many hardware guys have a Linux Guru in  
the same room?  As a hardware guy, I want to design my FPGA, I want  
to lay out my PCB, I want to write my microcontroller firmware.  I  
don't want to chase down inscrutable build errors, like the odd hard- 
coded path issue in guile that started this thread.

I come to gEDA because all of my new computers are Macs and I'm  
interested in professional-quality tools for that platform.  I  
recently posted a snarky comment to sci.electronics.cad, basically  
saying that "you get what you pay for with tools."  DJ Delorie asked,  
"Why?" and then I realized that I depend on free, open-source tools.   
The good news is that I was able to build Apache and Subversion for  
OS X without problems and I've got a Mac mini running as the  
Subversion server.  I use emacs.  So I did a little investigating and  
found that one could use fink to fetch and install gEDA on OS X using  
X Windows.  And it worked.  But if it hadn't been "simple" -- meaning  
if it took more than an evening of futzing -- then I would have said,  
"Nope, this doesn't work" and that would've been that.

So I suppose my points are:
a) (Most) Hardware guys want to design and implement hardware.  Tools  
are the means to that end, not the end in itself, and we'd rather do  
our work than deal with tool build failures.
b) I wanted to get gEDA up and running under Cygwin because I have to  
use a Windows box during the day and being able to use the gEDA stuff  
on that platform is useful to me, and perhaps others.

Thanks too the developers for all of their efforts.  It's appreciated.

-a


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