Re: gEDA-user: Functional blocks and PCB format changes

[Steven Michalske <smichalske@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 13, 2010, at 2:22 PM, Stefan Salewski wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 16:34 -0400, Windell H. Oskay wrote:
>>> But that is exactly what others have been saying, they are concerned
>>> about the file size they think they would get from XML... "I want to
>>> run PCB on my iPad", etc.
>> 
>> File size just means a bigger file to generate/parse. 
> 
> And why should we care about efficient coding -- computers are fast.

As a performance guy.....  this argument leads to poorly thought out code.
> 
> And why should we care about screen layout -- monitors are large today.

Not true.  we still have many 13" monitors.
> 
> And why care about energy saving -- we still have some oil and gas.

Quit trashing the planet for my kids.
> 
> Sorry, I was not able to follow the whole discussion, but I do not like
> your arguments too much. XML may be fine -- if it has big benefits, that
> may be much more important than size.

My issues with XML
1.	It is used in way to many cases for data serialization.  It is a document, not data storage.
2.	Readability,  properly formatted not too bad, but most xml documents I have read are not clearly formatted,  just one long line.
3.	Requires great documentation and specification to be compatible. DTD's and other extra stuff.  ( I doubt the developers will prioritize that extra work )
4.	I have to write a parser all the functions for each token,  to rip out the tokens and such.

I know that i will not write any code for XML if i can avoid it, as most times it is the wrong choice.

Now to put this in prospective.  I proposed that footprints be SVG with specially named layers.  that could be mapped properly into PCB
Here are my reasons for SVG:  
-	it is an open format with strong support in the industry. 
-	it is well documented. 
-	it has libraries for manipulation.

These strengths overcome 3 and 4,  and slightly overcome 2.

> 
> I have seen people asking for help in internet forums -- they posted a
> JPEG screenshot of a short computer error message -- 50 kByte for 50
> Byte of text. They do not care...
> 
They don't know better,  teach them, they can learn

> 
> 
> 
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