Re: gEDA-user: Any discussion about combining schematics and symbols into one file?

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 26, 2009, at 7:27 PM, Bob Paddock wrote:

>> When you embed symbols you've thrown away much of gEDA's
>> great strength, because a collection of files is a much more
>> flexible and reusable representation of the design.
>
> Spend some time surfing the web looking at and downloading
> gschem schematics.  50%+ of the projects you download
> will be missing the symbols.  This fails the 'reusable' part.

We do not yet have common conventions for organizing gEDA projects.  
The tools exist, though.

>
> Can I take one of your schematics from your machine,
> put it on my machine in a different location, making no changes in
> anything, and view it?  If the answer is no, this also fails
> the 'reusable' part.

You can take one of my gEDA *projects* ("cvs checkout" is the easiest  
way), put it on your machine in a different location and view it. You  
can type "make", and generate netlist, BOM, and, if you install a few  
other tools, a complete documentation packet. My customers do this.  
Change one line in the makefile, you can target a different layout  
package.

Can you do this with any integrated package?

>
> "a collections of files" is much harder to maintain than a single
> file, when you want to easily share the design, or maintain
> it for many years.
>

Maintenance and reuse require changes. I can change default resistor  
footprints for an entire project by editing a single symbol file.

We maintain software as collections of files because it helps sharing  
and maintenance. As electronic designs become more complex, this  
approach becomes more important in that domain, too. The monolithic  
file approach scales poorly.

gEDA is a powerful lever: I couldn't possibly do the things I do with  
gEDA using a less flexible and scriptable tool: I couldn't make the  
deadlines. Keeping different kinds of data separated is part of what  
makes this possible.

Hand tools may be easier to learn, but power tools are more  
productive, and robots are even better. gEDA is a toolkit for  
building robotic EDA assistants.

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