Re: gEDA-user: Light? Heavy? Reuse...

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 21, 2009, at 6:19 AM, Stephan Boettcher wrote:

>
> How about a new application, gbom, similar to gattrib, that allows
> entry of a BOM.

Please, let's not turn a clean flow into a tangle.

There are two entities here: the BOM, which is output, and should  
hardly ever be edited directly (like the netlist). We don't have a  
good common name for the collection of information, in addition to  
the schematic, that goes into the creation of the BOM. Some call it a  
"database", but that immediately suggests some SQL thing to others,  
which may not be the best way to think about it. Let's call it the  
DOM, "data on materials".

For a programming analogy, the BOM is object code, the schematics are  
your .c files (containing procedures), and the DOM is your collection  
of .h files (containing mostly interfaces). /usr/include is a  
database, but not an SQL thing.

The way I do this today is that my DOM is a directory of heavy  
symbols. That's pretty effective: slowopamp.sym currently lists in  
the BOM as OP90GSZ, but I can easily change in in that one place if,  
for example, that particular part goes unobtainium.

>
> gbom would import attributes from a schematic and the engineer could
> fill all the remaining fields, with the help of matches in a
> database.
>
> gnetlist shall merge the bom with the schematic.

No, that's backwards. The BOM is a *product* of gnetlist.

>
> The database defines what attributes are required, available, or can
> be matched from the schematic.
>
> The bom shall keep a record of the source for each attibute, to
> facilitate changes, and for visual hints to the user.

Better not to tangle the flow in the first place.

>
> The database and bom could be very similar file formats.
>
> Could be .sch format, actually, and with net= attributes include the
> netlist.
>

Now you're back to the heavy symbol approach. We can already do this,  
we don't need a new tool.

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




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