Mail Archives: geda-user/2012/11/18/05:48:13
On Sun, 18 Nov 2012, Juergen Harms wrote:
> On 11/16/2012 08:39 PM, Gareth Edwards wrote:
>> On 16 November 2012 18:40, Dave McGuire <mcguire AT neurotica DOT com> wrote:
>>> Are there any plans for a new snapshot or "unstable" release of either
>>> anytime soon?
>>>
>>
>> We're actively working towards gaf stable-1.8 again. I'm not presuming
>> a timescale but I don't think it will be long.
>>
>
> Excellent news - and probably in time for making it into the new release of
> Mageia (Mageia 3)
>
>> To me, gschem is a power tool with few problems, while pcb is unusable
>>
>
> I agree with the first part - isn't the second part a minority opinion (looks
> like a quite small minority)?
>
Among pcb users it is, for sure. Of course we don't know how many users
turn pcb down and never express their opinion.
I am a pcb user for many years. I see the limitation
of the infrastructure about special handling copper and non-copper layers,
holes, footprints, and I do realize that there is a collection of special
cases that make pcb work. I also see how some seemingly innocent features
are hard to implement with the current infrastructure, partly due to that
design.
However... I don't think this is the reason, or even on the list of
possible reasons new users may turn down pcb. I've used gschem+pcb on
small group university courses for multiple semesters and many students
didn't really like the tools, but none ever named such design decisions or
infrastructural limitation as reason.
Pcb is not unusable - even if it depends on many special cases,
it very often covers the need. It works very fine for me, and I choose it
over other packages because it is closest to UNIX philosophy with
totally separate schematics, pcb layout and other tools that I can drive
easily from makefiles and store all the design files in svn and process
them with scripts (power of text formats).
There are some parts I would leave out, which are trying to fulfill very
different requirements (i.e. dbus, 3d rendering, spread-sheet-like editing
of things, import schematics in pcb). As long as one can disable them
or avoid using them, I see no major problem. And even when it is not, one
can keep using an old version or maintain a fork.
Regards,
Tibor
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