Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure

[msokolov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Sokolov)]

Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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.

I just feel like adding one different data point.

I come into the world of hardware design from a software background.
And not just any software background, but specifically a religiously
zealous free software background, and specifically UNIX, all command
line and non-visual.

I'm very fanatical about free software and use exclusively free
operating systems.  Free as in freedom of course, yadda yadda yadda.

The reason I get into hardware design is simple: I want a platform for
my software hacking, and the platform I like does not exist.  If I want
a toy that does not exist, the only way I can get it is to build it
myself.

I am extremely thankful to the gEDA developers for an EDA suite that
runs under UNIX and stores its design files in a simple text-based
format.  I'm a UNIX fanatic and cannot use anything else, so without
gschem and pcb the world of hardware design would have been simply out
of reach for me.

For a hard-core UNIX programmer like me, the only way to design hardware
is to make it look like UNIX software: write the source with vi, keep it
in CVS and compile with make, all in the absence of a graphical display.
A graphical display won't do me any good because my mind can't handle
it.  I have what's called an 80-column mind, meaning that my brain can't
really process anything that isn't ASCII in 80 columns.

This works really well with FPGAs once I have managed to obtain a UNIX
command line version of one vendor's FPGA compiler.  Write Verilog in
vi, type 'make', an FPGA configuration bit image comes out.  Test it,
check the source into CVS.  Yay, just like C programming in UNIX.
Hardware design for software hackers who want toys that don't exist,
way to go!  Open source hardware copying the ways of open source
software.

Regrettably it's harder with board-level designs: unfortunately the PCB
layout and routing technology is not at the point where one can write
the schematic source code, another text file (also treated as source
code) with board mechanical dimensions, etc., then type 'make' and have
a Gerber file come out.  PCB layout is unfortunately a laborious manual
operation unlike compiling a C program or an FPGA.  To be honest I dread
the thought of PCB layout.  I'll probably just hire someone else to do
it once I'm done with the schematic entry phase and am confident enough
in it.

The text-based nature of gschem schematic and symbol files is another
life saver for me.  While I do grudgingly use an X11 display while
drawing schematics (the graphical aspect really pushes the limits of my
comfort zone), I very often exit gschem, fire up vi and edit my .sch
files directly, right in the centre of my comfort zone.  I love ASCII!
And when I do use the gschem GUI, I make heavy use of the keyboard
shortcuts and use the mouse as little as possible -- I hate mice!

OK, this is enough rant for me today.  I just wanted to give a different
perspective, diametrically opposite from the typical 'hardware guy'
asking for a Weendoze version.

Blessed Be,
MS


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