Re: gEDA-user: PCB format wishlist

[Larry Doolittle <ldoolitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rick -

On Mon, Sep 06, 2010 at 10:31:15PM -0400, Rick Collins wrote:
>> Several times now in this thread I keep thinking that the language Forth is
>> being described.  'Words' built up on previously defined 'words'...
> I have often thought that I would prefer to write an HDL that works like 
> Forth.  If used in this way, it becomes a bit Lisp like in that the data 
> and program would need to become one and the same.  The Forth that 
> describes the design would be executed to "create" the design in memory 
> or to be output as a set of Gerber files.  But to do things like DRC, you 
> would need to analyze either the image in memory or the design source 
> itself as data.

Ideas like this are cool, but take extra attention to their
security implications.  Is the file format capable of infinite
loops?  Are there primitives to read or write files?  Hmm.
It's not impossible to get right.  There's an old security
saying; my Google-fu failed me, but it goes something like:

Users are receptive to all sorts of ideas of what computers
should do, and vendors are all too ready to make them happen.
By the time a security expert exclaims "are you nuts?", it's
too late.

   - Larry


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