X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at neurotica.com X-NSA-prism-xkeyscore: I do not want to be surveilled Message-ID: <53DE6444.5050506@neurotica.com> Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 12:33:08 -0400 From: Dave McGuire User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: [geda-user] How it may work some day... References: <1407070732 DOT 933 DOT 20 DOT camel AT AMD64X2> In-Reply-To: <1407070732.933.20.camel@AMD64X2> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com On 08/03/2014 08:58 AM, Stefan Salewski wrote: > Yesterday I wrote some minimal description of the intended behaviour of > my gschem clone, see > > http://www.ssalewski.de/PetEd.html.en > > In first line this is for myself -- to motivate me to continue the > cleanup process and to ensure that my cleanups will not change the > intended behaviour... > > Recently someone pointed me to one of these commercial Web-based editors > -- this one is from Digikey called SchemeIt, see link at bottom of my > page. I can remember I have tested a similar tool about one year ago for > a few seconds -- looked not really bad. Some people say that this kind > of Web-based tools is the future -- is someone really using it? > > And schematics and PCB layout on smartphone and tablets -- I can > remember that some people said that that is the future. I still can not > really imagine how this should work, and I have not seen such Apps yet. > Is someone using it, and is it really the future? Or is someone of you > already working on such an App? I can't imagine it either. But keep in mind one important concept, one which most people seem to have forgotten: We are not all just "passengers" in stuff like this. We are steering where this stuff is going, these use cases and work methodologies. We don't have to just "follow along" with "what everyone else is doing", because what happens if everyone just does that? Nobody steers, much to the delight of salesmen everywhere. A very bad side-effect of nobody steering is that SOMEONE will notice this and start taking advantage of the situation. That's usually salespeople and suits, and they usually gravitate toward creating vendor lock-in situations. That's what's going to happen with these silly "web-based design" tools. Sure, they'll say "Oh, your data is safe, you can download it!" ...but nobody actually WILL, and when those companies close up shop, or someone in China starts selling a board that looks suspiciously like yours, you're S-O-L. So, don't worry about what "is the future". Decide what works best, using your wisdom and experience, and DO it, and don't let some salesman tell you otherwise. Smart people will likely independently converge on related (if not actually similar) solutions, and dumb people, well...they can pay us for our advice. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ/3 New Kensington, PA