Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Stale rat's nest?

[Dan McMahill <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Luciani wrote:
> On 3/3/06, Vanessa Dannenberg <vanessadannenberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> > Perhaps it would be a good idea to show the user normal everyday words in
> > stead of 'refdes' and 'slot' and whatever else.  It makes a lot more sense at
> > first, and seems less daunting.  When I'm confronted with weird terms like
> > these, I think "Huh?  What does this mean?  This is too complicated for me."
>
>
> I disagree that the terminology should be changed to more common
> words.  In any profession a series of terms evolves that allows
> succinct and accurate communication. Learning the terminology is a
> necessary step to proficiency.
>
> To reduce the learning curve there should be some sort of help menu
> item that will access terms and definitions. If gaf has terms that are
> different from standard industry terms (I am not sure if does) we
> probably should change them.

I think what we need is early on in the documentation to have a quick 
and to the point definition of terms.  Unfortunately, there is not an 
industry standard among cad tools so such a section (I'm thinking a page 
or less) would be a big help.  For example, what we call a "footprint" 
in PCB is a "pattern" or a "stencil" in a couple of other tools.

-Dan