Re: gEDA-user: Random thoughts on the future interface of PCB

[kai-martin knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Clifton wrote:

>> It is even less fun if the fix is ignored or not liked by
>> the regular developers. BTDTGNT 
>                 ^_____ I'm not sure what that expands to.
> (Meh.. Google told me what it means, never mind!)
> 
> Anyhow.. if there is some patch / fix you're referring to
> specifically, ping it back up and someone might take an
> interest.

Admittedly, my mini rant mixed more than one occasion:

1) I got annoyed by gnetlist not properly handling footprint
 attributes of multi part symbols. So I started hacking the 
source for a fix. On the way I discovered the more general 
problem that gnetlist output potentially depends on the order 
symbols were added to the schematic.
When i presented the fix to the ml, about the only reaction 
I got, was a lengthy discussion with John D, who was constantly 
pushing his own agenda. 
Ok, there was Peter B, who challenged me to sketch, how my 
sorting algorithm would deal with some corner cases. My 
response remained the last post in this sub thread.
Result: Whether or not power pins in separate symbols yield 
proper netlists, still depends on the order the symbols were 
entered in gschem. 

2) When I tried to do scripted printing in pcb I discovered, 
that action strings from the command line were simply ignored. 
The main procedure just exited before action strings were 
evaluated. Once the action script got active, it exposed the 
next bug: GUI-less calls to many actions get caught by what 
was meant to be a fuse against unauthorized calls. The 
application exits immediately with error message. My patch 
got ignored several times with moths in between and it needed 
a rant to have a dev actually look at it. When he did, he 
rejected my removal of the fuse. However, the proposed 
solution, a special flag for GUI-less HIDs is way beyond 
my hacking capabilities. Nobody else dared to comment on 
the issue. 
Result: action scripts on the command line remain broken. 
Scripted printing cannot make sure values are shown rather 
than refdeses. I keep a local mini fork for printing. My 
print script won't work for anyone else.

3) Early during the scripted printing affair, I discovered, 
that almost all command line options described in the pcb 
manual are obsolete. When I volunteered to fix this on the 
ml, it was suggested to put the documentation directly in 
the source like it is done for actions. This seemed like a 
good idea, so I started hacking. Turned out that implicit 
alphabetical sort like it is reasonable for actions, does 
not quite fit for command lines. With so many options you'd 
want some grouping for better readability. 
I split my effort in two patches: Modification of the 
comment collection script and the bulk of documenting 
comments. The first patch got applied after I did some 
nagging. So I went ahead and spent a couple of evenings 
to write the documenting comments. First my patch was 
ignored, again. After nagging and renagging I was told, 
that the dev did not like the way I implemented explicit 
ordering. Thus the second patch got rejected. 
Result: The command line options section in the pcb manual 
still sends users to completely wrong directions. No word 
of warning.

Long time result: I dedicate my free cycles to other open 
source projects -- projects, where I can achieve more with 
less fight and less frustration.

From the outside, geda/pcb development looks like a closed
shop. Since I started using geda about 2005 no fresh blood 
seems to have entered the circuit. Maybe I overlooked some 
not so noisy fellow. But I get the impression, that you 
were the last one to be granted dev status. The fact, that 
the dev list excludes mere users adds to this impression.

Hope, you are not annoyed by this rant. Keep up the good work!

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel:
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6C0B9F53



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