Re: gEDA-user: FYI [Fwd: [Balloon] Balloon 4]

[Bob Paddock <bob.paddock@xxxxxxxxx>]

> a) They have Altium
> b) They have bits in Altium already (footprints etc..) -> momentum.
> c) They need an auto-router which can handle really complex stuff.

Hun?  Three of us at work have spent weeks trying to get Altium's
autorouter to do much at all, and do it correctly when it does, and
finally gave up.
As far I can tell the native Altium router is just there to irritate
you enough to force your boss into spending the money for their high
end optional router.

The autorouter in PCB 'just works'.

> d) Blind / buried vias may be needed.

Which is why I still endure Altium.  I know there is a build of PCB
'out there' that does have the patch applied for this.

> No-one could in good conscience suggest PCB is going to be able to
> compete up with that sort of design.

I must be unconscious, as I use both regularly.  PCB has its faults,
mostly in the user interface, where Altium the faults are everyplace.
For example there are multiple places to set up the printer.  Some of
the places work, some of the places interact with the other places,
some places do nothing, and in the end you may or may not get what you
wanted on the printer.  My favorite is move a schematic from one place
to an other, or even open the same schematic with the same version of
Altium after reinstalling it due to a hard disk failure, and all of
the schematic symbols now have 'dots' in them that you can't get rid
of without redoing the schematic for every symbol.

> git HEAD rendering speed alone
> would make it prohibitive.

You don't turn on the Altium's autorouter's 'show trials' unless your
goal is to goof off.

> Not necessarily.. but whatever happens, it may well be beneficial to the
> community as a whole.

I've never had much luck with Altium's own Import/Export working in
trying to go between that and PADS.
Seems like they really don't want it to work.  You also have to know
what version of Altium is being talked about because the
proprietary file formats have changed over the years, in ways that are
not backwards compatible with older versions.


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