Re: gEDA-user: Why use gEDA?

[John Griessen <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jorge Ernesto Guevara Cuenca wrote:
> some of they say "use gEDA is back years in the simulation software",.
.
.
.
, is gEDA an proper software to use during the
> formation academical  process?

Perhaps their criteria for judging software are about "enabling low skilled to 
do more" or "enabling medium skilled to do the ordinary work faster".  Neither 
criterion has a place in good education, where fundamentals and ability to deal 
with the unknown is important.

The trend toward learning fewer fundamentals and taking more  for granted in 
training EE CS ECE students has been going for about twentyfive years now, and I 
think there are some just starting trends that may make for a swing back to more 
fundamental engineering of computers and switching power supplies.  We now have 
some working organic semiconductor displays and suppliers of materials to make 
them and other "plastic logic"  that is not super tiny or as high speed as 
silicon or germanium or silicon carbide circuits, but it is low cost and going 
lower.  As the use of microcontrollers matures, we will see circuits handling 
milliWatts to 1/2 horsepower to really conserve power and give finer control for 
really  low costs and with lower hazards -- that will drive some more basic 
logic design and power design and making of circuits printed and baked onto 
doors of appliances that need to cost a buck and be easy to repair by replacing 
sections.  I don't think cell-phone design will drive things twenty years from 
now, so teaching fundamentals will get you praised, not laughed at.

John Griessen

For correctness, and scriptability, and quick bug fixes, gEDA toos can't be 
beat, it's just that so few are using them, some of the GUI speed tools that are 
laborious to build aren't there.


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