Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Connecting Nets by hand

["Samuel A. Falvo II" <sam.falvo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 6/23/05, Eric Daine <daine_ep@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I can certainly sympathize with the way you feel.

Turning off auto-DRC-checking is the only way that I was able to
successfully connect pins by hand, at all.  The inability to edit
traces after their drawn, however, is maddening.  And moving parts
once they've touched a trace is infuriating -- no matter what I do, it
drags all the trace endpoints with it!  I end up having to delete and
re-draw all the traces to it.  This sucks when you accidentally place
a chip one pin off, for example.

> The point of all this drivel is that I encourage you to stick with it.
> I feel you will end up with a system that is very suited to your
> personal design style, and you will have control over every aspect.

Quite the contrary.  I feel very imprisoned and not in control at all.
 I've more than once thought of making my own PCB editing tool, based
on a tile-structure, that allows me to basically "paint" a board, as
DeluxePaint allowed me to paint a picture on my old Amiga.

> These are powerful tools, they are not easy to learn, but worth it for
> the long haul if this is something you want to keep doing.

I do not believe that powerful tools need be hard to learn.  When I
first got into Linux, the command-line tools were natural extensions
of what I'd already known about DOS.  Learning about regular
expressions wasn't even as difficult as working with PCB right now.

PCB and I will just never see eye to eye, and that's the way it is, I guess.

And since I'm going into all-new territory with the actual production
of a printed circuit board, I'm sure *that* will just be just dandy
having to learn about Gerber files, Excellon drill files, etc.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II