Re: gEDA-user: Power (and other non-graphical) pins

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 13, 2009, at 1:01 PM, Larry Doolittle wrote:

> John -
>
> On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 12:54:21PM -0700, John Doty wrote:
>> It seems you want gEDA to cater to your unwillingness to master new
>> skills, learn better ways to do things. But gEDA's power is that it
>> frees you to use the better way, not constraining you to inefficient
>> ways of doing things.
>
> John, we've heard this all before.  My ideas about an ideal
> work flow even parallel yours completely!
>
> But gEDA's flexibility should _include_ the ability to deal
> with people who don't think like us.

But it does! You want to put everything in schematics, you can do that.

>   So please stop telling
> people how to do their work.  Do make sure gEDA maintains
> its ability to use "the better way", and don't discourage
> others from using it in "inefficient ways", and even improving
> its ability to work so inefficiently (?).

As long as it doesn't *enforce* inefficiency, that's great. But it  
seems to me that Joerg wants precisely that. The "handle power pins  
the way I want automatically" thing is a complex can of worms, as  
Peter has pointed out. If implemented, it *will* get in the way of  
other flows, trust me.

>
> The expert modes will then be on their desk, ready for them
> when _they_ are ready to adapt.

"A program should do one thing well." One of the reasons Kernighan  
said that is that adding features to a program beyond the "one thing"  
tends strongly to take away flexibility from the user, generally in  
ways that those promoting the features are blind to.

An example in gEDA is the change in attribute promotion defaults that  
happened a while back. This was apparently intended to make the  
attribute system easier to understand (I'm skeptical), but the  
collateral damage to me was that schematics I drew before I  
understood this change are encrusted with attributes that are a  
barrier to reuse.

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
jpd@xxxxxxxxx




_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user