Re: gEDA-user: Spice netlister

[al davis <ad151@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 21 January 2008, a r wrote:
> Good place for gEDA to start spreading in this industry is to
> concentrate on design entry tools (schematics editor,
> netlisters), logic simulators and data viewers (simulation
> results etc). This is because these tools are relatively
> simple, non-critical, easy to adopt

It looks like that is what we have, for that reason.  Also, they 
make nice student projects.

A contrary point  ..  we need the advanced projects to appeal to 
advanced developers.  The experts don't want to go back to 
doing maintenance on the programs of the past, even their own.   
They don't want to join a project they think is being led by 
someone who knows less than they do.

But keep in mind another mission, and measure of success ...  
How much of a design can you do with a totally free system?

This can change the priority of some ..  For example "data 
viewers" ..  are useful only if you have data to view.  The 
most important data viewers are to view the data from other 
free tools, that depend only on other free tools.

Likewise with "netlisters".  The most important netlisters are 
the ones for free tools, especially "ours", which should be 
100% supported.

It is most important to support "our" tools.  Then next, "other 
free" tools.  The way I differentiate "our" tools from "other 
free" tools is that it goes both ways.  By "our" tools, I mean 
the key developers are here, and they participate in gEDA, and 
we all work together to make them work as a system.  By "other 
free" tools, I mean those that could be here but are not, and 
that supporting it would be a one-way street because they don't 
participate in gEDA.  Notice I said "key developers".  There 
are lots of cases where there is overlap in the user 
communities, but not the developers.

A very important need here is for the "glue" support to be 
developed as features are being developed, so it is ready when 
the features are ready.  As an example, "spectre" 
and "verilog-AMS" have not been important because they have not 
been used by other free tools, only commercial ones.  Both of 
these have become a priority because gnucap can use them.  We 
have a situation now where our netlisters do not fully support 
our own tools.


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