Re: gEDA-user: fritzing

[John Doty <jpd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On May 9, 2009, at 2:51 PM, Joerg wrote:

> Stefan Salewski wrote:
>> On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 17:13 -0700, Joerg wrote:
>>
>>> IMHO that is fundamentally wrong. How many successful race car  
>>> drivers
>>> these days do you think can disassemble and re-assemble a Ferrari  
>>> engine
>>> _and_ tune it properly?
>>>
>>
>> What I heard about Michael Schumacher was that his strength was  
>> more his
>> technical understanding about the car, which makes it possible to
>> discuss with the tech team to improve the cat, than his driving  
>> skills.
>>
>
> Sure they know the technology, just like a pilot must know the inner
> workings of a jet engine or like I know how C and assembler is  
> written.
> But that does not mean those people can perform the work of an expert
> mechanic or engineer in those fields.

The best can. When Yeager was test flying the Mig-15, he wired the  
pyros on the ejection seat himself.

> In fact most can't, and they don't
> have to.

Just because most people are content with mediocrity does not mean we  
should cater to their laziness. And note that this kind of laziness  
makes their job harder: master the tools, and the computer becomes an  
enormously more powerful device in your hands.

>
>
>>> I know several fine electronics engineers who are not at all  
>>> versed in
>>> fixing a PC, let alone install an OS. In fact, this is the  
>>> majority of
>>> top notch engineers that I know.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> It's hard for me to imagine an engineer who can not install an OS,  
>> when
>> so many 12 years old school boys can do it. I can imagine other "top
>> notch" people, like (financial) managers, artists, maybe  
>> mathematicians
>> -- but that is not out target group.
>>
>
> Maybe hard to imagine for you but that how life is :-)

Nope. Life for the first rate is studying a new thing every day,  
stretching yourself, learning how to exploit different methodologies  
and points of view.

Von Neummann once recommended a specific vacuum tube to the engineers  
working on the early computers. He understood the issues and knew  
that this specific new tube had worth characteristics. That's first  
rate.

>
>
>> Of course gEDA for Windows would mean more users. But would those
>> additional user contribute something to the project?
>>
>
> Oh yes. Without feedback from lots of folks who do engineering and CAD
> for decades you cannot create a good CAD tool.

Unless you walk in the developers' shoes, you cannot give truly  
effective feedback. And developers who never walk in users' shoes  
will never really understand what they need. Fundamentally, gEDA is  
better because we don't have that inefficient kind of division of labor.

>
>
>> KiCAD was available from the beginning for Windows. Based on your  
>> logic
>> the development of KiCad should be very fast, because of all these  
>> "top
>> notch engineers" who can use it and who can contribute. ...
>
>
> It has improved trmendously over the last three years.
>
>
>>                                                      ... I do not  
>> know
>> much about KiCAD, but it seems to be not too bad, and I know some  
>> people
>> who used it on Windows. ...
>
>
> IMHO it's at a more useful stage right now than gEDA. No flames  
> please,
> that's just my personal opinion, as someone who's done CAD quite
> extensively for over 20 years. Kicad is a very good CAD program,  
> but has
> some quirks left.

They won't get fixed by complaining.

>
>
>>            .. But most development seems to be still done by
>> the original author.
>>
>
> Yes, and therefore even more amazing. But I never understood why the
> Charras team and the gEDA team don't join forces. Very good things  
> could
> come out of that.

We have completely different and fundamentally incompatible visions.  
That doesn't mean we can't respect each other, but I think joining  
forces is crazy.

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




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