Re: gEDA-user: PCB a bad name ?

[Vaughn Treude <vltreude@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2006-09-20 at 12:14, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On Sep 20, 2006, at 2:25 PM, kmk wrote:
> >>> PCB's UI in particular deviates from Linux norms.
> >>
> >>    "Linux norms"??  What exactly are the UI "norms" in the Linux 
> >> world?
> >
> > I don't think, usability of pcb suffers from deviation of some kind of
> > official norms. Still, it helps to look how other applications GUIs
> > handle similar problems. Some techniques have evolved over the years 
> > and
> > proved to work better than others. Applications whose UI is rather
> > pecular tend to loose users. I dumped qcad because of this.
> 
>    Yes, I agree.  A large number of PCB beginners, however, complain 
> about the UI and assume it's "unusual" because it was thrown together 
> without any sort of attention, while I'm certain the opposite is true. 

I didn't mean to imply that it was badly designed, just that it was the
earliest program in the suite, and it was written for an OS that's not
(to my knowledge) in common use anymore.  Therefore it may have been
designed to different standards.

>  
> I, too, had a hard time with the UI when I first started using PCB.  
> However, once I learned it, I found that it can be SCREAMING FAST and 
> very effective.  It is NOT "newbie friendly", nor should it necessarily 
> be.  Complex, powerful tools have a learning curve.  I spent many days 
> gnashing my teeth while getting used to PCB's UI, and have now done 
> four years of extremely fast, efficient, effective design work with it. 
>   That's a fine trade-off that I'm willing to make any time, and I 
> suspect that goes for many others as well.
> 
>    The "Linux norms" (as if such a thing actually existed) typically 
> cater to making Windows refugees comfortable with Linux by trying to 
> replace the point-and-drool "I don't need no steeenking I.Q." interface 
> while trying to avoiding its [unavoidable] drawbacks.  This does not an 
> effective design tool make.
> 

No, I didn't mean that either.  I don't much care for the Windows way of
doing things.  It's just that powerful programs don't necessarily have
to be super-complicated. Nor do we need to reinvent the wheel and do an
interface in a different way just because it's possible.  OTOH, I
probably shouldn't be complaining about something I got for free. :-) My
comments weren't really meant to be as negative as you understood them
to be.  Nor do I want to yank the rug out from underneath the folks who
have been using PCB for a long time.

If I ever broach this topic again (I'm rather swamped right now, so I
shouldn't have gotten into it) I'll be much more specific about the
handful of things in PCB that don't make sense to me.

Vaughn T


>    Let's not even THINK about dumbing down the impressive power of PCB 
> by changing its UI to make it take a few hours instead of a few days to 
> learn.  The trade-off is one that every serious engineer or even 
> spare-time tinkerer should be more than willing to make.
> 
>              -Dave
> 
> --
> Dave McGuire
> Cape Coral, FL
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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