Re: gEDA-user: Reinventing the wheel

[Stephan Boettcher <boettcher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Colin D Bennett <colin@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> First, let's be clear that popularity is no indication of usefulness or
> goodness of something.
>
> But, if a product is less widely-chosen, perhaps there is something
> that can be done to improve the learning curve for new users... 

Why is there so much discussion here about the needs of potential new
users, instead of the needs of current, loving, existing users?  Let's
make the tools perfect for us (that includes discoverability and
documentation improvements), and not cater for not-yet-users.  When we
love the tools, they will eventually also leran how to love them.  See: 

> e.g., I was frustrated with gEDA when I first started using it, and
> thought KiCAD looked easy to use and cool.  But I found that I didn't
> like the feel of KiCAD (Wxwidgets was probably part of the
> problem...), and eventually figured out the tricks needed to make the
> gEDA system "work".  Now I love gEDA and am really comfortable with
> it, 

Q.e.d.

> but I must say that it's difficult to learn.  Perhaps a comprehensive
> tutorial/manual that explains the usual PCB workflow would help.  I
> know there are lots of ways to use gEDA, but for new users, a basic
> and sensible standard workflow could be identified.

Yes.  Well, the results may be essentially the same, but still, the
emphasis must be the needs of those how already use the tools, else the
delepoment may run into dead ends.

In the end, the development caters the needs of whoever is doing the
development, and that is how it must be.  Those of us (like me) who just
argue their needs on this list, but do not write code, can just hope to
steer the development a little bit towards their needs.

That brings me to another point: I somehow feel a barrier of entry for
contributing code to gEDA/PCB, more than with other projects.  This is a
combination of a lot of little details which have been discussed before.
Maybe there is change in the right direction now, but I do not see any.

If it were easier, some new users may already have written a tutorial
based on their learning experience, or make the existing tutorials
easier to find.

-- 
Stephan


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