Re: gEDA-user: Useless or harmful stuff

[Dave N6NZ <n6nz@xxxxxxxx>]

Stefan Salewski wrote:
> I hesitate to write this -- and I am still not sure if I should.
Why?  What part of honesty about a technical shortcoming is offensive?

> 
> Some people may think it is a good decision to upload all their stuff to
> gedasymbols, including gschem.log, footprints just called button.fp
> without any useful comments, or careless designed symbols.
> 
> I think some of us including myself should be some more carefully and
> ponder about the benefits before uploading. Some stuff may be useless,
> some may be even harmful if designed careless with bugs.
> 
Well, I've never uploaded anything because I've never considered any of 
my symbols or footprints "finished". Maybe if I ever build two boards 
with the same footprint without polishing it... :)   Anyway, I'll also 
say that I was once burned by a footprint that I downloaded off the 'net 
without sufficient inspection, and so I've pretty much sworn off 
anything except for footprints I've done my little ol'self.  I also make 
my own symbols just because over the decades I've developed ... um... 
"strong opinions" about how schematics should be drawn.

OTOH, I don't think a whole bunch of process and rules and so forth are 
going to encourage what should be an open and democratic process. 
Perhaps some system where there are multiple repos, each with a 
particular set of design rules spelled out (like 10/10 footprints, 8/8 
footprints, ANSI symbols, etc...) would be good, so that a contributor 
would have a checklist to run down before uploading.  Automated rule 
checkers would be nice, but not necessary.  Then what I'd really like to 
see is a Digg-like moderation system where anybody that used the symbol 
could give it a "It works for me" vote.  That way, a user could filter 
on well-road-tested footprints, etc.

Anyway... just a few random thoughts.

For my part, I tend to build little footprint and symbol generator 
tools.  Maybe instead of a repo of symbols, we should be leaning more 
along the lines of a repo of symbol and footprint generators, with some 
kind of conventionalized command line, and a well-known syntax for 
specifying design rules.  So... "I need a TQFP 44, 0.8 lead pitch, 8 mil 
trace, 8 mill space, 10 mil silk, hand solder sized pads..." is 
something you feed to a generator instead of a search engine.

-dave



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