Re: gEDA-user: why some skip KiCAD and gEDA

[Jared Casper <jaredcasper@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:35 AM, Stefan Salewski <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Consider the toys from the big company with the damaged fruit: A reason
> for the success of the toys is that documentations seems to be not
> needed.
>

I agree with the idea, but the thing is, the Apple software that
doesn't need documentation doesn't do a whole lot.   I don't know of
any sufficiently powerful tool, especially CAD, that doesn't require
some time learning how to use the thing.  Try to sit down in front of
SolidWorks and pump out a widget without first reading some
documentation; build a 3d animation in 3d Studio or Maia; pump out a
board in Orcad.  Sufficiently powerful tools need learning.  People
build careers out of being very good at using just one of these tools.

> A lot of documentation can make people think that it is very
> complicated.
>

IMHO, it _IS_ very complicated (relatively), and necessarily so.
There are a lot of options that need considered, a lot of details to
get right, a lot of workflows to support, etc..  But complicated
doesn't have to mean hard to use and not intuitive.

> For gEDA/PCB we have collected a lot of documentation over the years --
> some is obsolete/outdated/redundant now or covers details, which most
> people are not interested in -- at least not when starting with
> gEDA/PCB.
>

For me, there is no such thing as too much documentation.  The problem
is when there is too much obsolete and just plain wrong documentation
and not enough of the right kind of documentation.

Jared


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