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RE: gEDA-user: good idea - bad idea ?



Hi all,

I have found it a Good Practice (TM) to have unique filenames even across
directories, because nowadays you never know where one would drag-and-drop
files into by accident (oops I twitched and released my index finger from
the mouse button).

BTW: all my local footprints (and symbols) have a $Id$ tag as to keep them
under some sort of (local) control [RCS, CVS, ...].

In this way the [Exp, Stab, Rel] state would be applicable and traceble in
the following manner:

"Experimental" during the first time in layout time,

"Stable" after verification (on a 1:1 PS printout)

and "Released" after manufacturing and testing of a board (--> "proven
technology").

All footprints without the $Id$ tag should be considered "Experimental" (or
even pre-"Experimental").

This could be implemented as a verification method (and identification of
the author/verifier) of footprints.

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Namens KURT PETERS
Verzonden: donderdag 4 januari 2007 12:46
Aan: geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Onderwerp: Re: gEDA-user: good idea - bad idea ?

DJ,

  It seems that you are advocating for "all" newlibs to be in a "personal
library".  I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but that kind of
would destroy a naming convention or two (hyperbole), unless gsch2pcb and
pcb really get the prioritization right as you suggested, possibly using
some internal attribute.  Is any developer of gsch2pcb ok with all that
(i.e., is he/she ready to support those changes)?  I suppose it'd be "easy" 
to add the attribute to M4's since you're going to pre-compile them anyways,
but it may be difficult to add to the already vast amount of newlibs out
there.
    You have a great point about the necessity to go through each and every
footprint in everyone's library and "vetting" them for a multiple of
usability metrics.  That's a tall order.  The main problem is that I think
right now a lot of people prefer using the newlibs and many of those are
"better" than the same-named M4.  I think short of some kind of painful
vetting process, there has to be some way to let the user continue (I use
that word sparingly since the only way to force non-M4's seems to be to
move/rename them) to segregate M4's from newlibs.

  Regards,
Kurt
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 21:07:48 -0500
From: DJ Delorie <dj@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: gEDA-user: good idea - bad idea ?
To: geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <200701040207.l0427m9r030585@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


>What, exactly, does this mean?
>"Bad idea, since we're planning on moving the M4 step to build time in 
>the future, making every footprint a newlib style."
>
>Some of the M4's are not-so-great, so if this means that the M4's will 
>be converted to newlib, thus essentially forcing users to use the 
>current M4's, then I'm not in favor.
>   But, since I don't know what that statement implies, I wasn't sure 
>how to respond.

We at least want to pre-compute all the footprints so that the user doesn't
need to run M4 while they're laying out boards.  For example, this would
help Windows installations, which don't have M4 by default.
That would also allow us to use other programs to generate footprints, like
perl or python.

I think keeping them as M4s just because you want to segregate "bad"
footprings from "good" ones is misleading.  EVERY footprint is potentially
good or bad; for example, the 0603-style footprints in M4 are quite good,
and maintaining them as macros is very easy.

My comment was simply that in the future, we will only have one type of
footprint.  What you need to do *now* is just make sure that your personal
libraries have preference over the default ones when the names conflict,
using techniques that don't depend on whether the footprints are M4 or
newlib style.

So, using a "newlib_*" prefix is bad, because eventually there will be no
"newlib" just "lib" ;-).  Using a "mine_*" prefix is better, or making a
practice of either fixing existing footprints or providing missing
footprints, while staying with standard names.

Note that PCB now has the ability to store arbitrary attributes in
footprints; mine all have copyright and origin information in them so I can
track them better after they're in the board.




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