Re: gEDA-user: Why use gEDA?

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2007-02-25 at 13:10 -0500, al davis wrote:
> On Sunday 25 February 2007 12:19, Jorge Ernesto Guevara Cuenca 
> wrote:
> > And i do a question, is gEDA an proper software to use during
> > the formation academical  process? I think yes that, this can
> > be used for that.
> 
> What is the biggest difference between education now and when I 
> was an undergrad student?  (1968-1972)...
> 
> When I was a student we had source for our software and 
> schematics for our hardware.

That would be a good place to be in, I miss the ability to get
schematics for TVs etc.. and browsing the service manual for a 'scope
out of interest for how it works. (I was amazed to see that my brother
bought a Phillips LCD TV, and it actually came with a schematic though!)

I'll chat to my colleges here who use PSpice for all their simulations,
and find out what it is (if anything) which keeps them using it rather
than anything else.

I suspect, that in some cases, it is the ability to reproduce and use
work which others have done using the PSpice specific models or
extensions to the language.

(As a non-PSpice user, I don't know what those are exactly, but I know
I've found difficulty using SPICE code / models from the net with
ngspice in the past).

I have spoken to an academic here who has used PSpice (and other spices)
since before PSpice had a GUI, and he maintains that PSpice has the
_best_ solver of all the packages available.

I strongly suggested he look at gnucap - and will try and push him that
way again. Working with power-electronics, I suspect that gnucap might
actually have some advantage for him, especially in dealing with
simulations of switching converters.

> Is software you can't study proper software for education?
> 
> I go a step farther ...  is equipment you can't study proper 
> equipment for education?

As an engineer (and student), I am always curious as to how things work,
but a long time ago resigned myself to the fact I'm never going to
understand every detail of how everything around me was designed.

What I will say, is that having knowledge of the _principles_, (and thus
the limitations) of equipment is an absolute MUST, especially as things
like digital oscilloscopes can mislead you if you're not wary.

I hope that you get gEDA + gnucap used in your University. I'm fighting
the fight here, even if it is just by using them myself, and when I can,
by working on the code to allow more easy integration between the tools.

Whilst I agree with John's comments that education shouldn't rely on
wrapping up the inner workings of software, nor do I think that gEDA
should dumb down, I do feel that a key requirement in _teaching_ is that
the software should not get in the way of the underlying lesson.

Sadly, most students are not comfortable with Unix and command lines. If
providing a more familiar GUI approach to using the tools is possible,
and doesn't detract from the core flexibility which benefits gEDA, I'm
all for it. It will help us compete with commercial tools - which (IMHO)
are not that good in terms of usability anyway.

Regards,

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)



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