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Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 15:36:33 -0800
Message-ID: <CAC4O8c-O1M-an1fAewqpxfvNv-T+vF6NSjqA6=Y_p2cj-sdSZw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] The state of gEDA/gaf (Was gEDA/PCBs diversity, Was:
 Pin hole size)
From: Britton Kerin <britton DOT kerin AT gmail DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
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On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 10:34 AM, DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any plans to implement back annotation ? Sometimes slot
>> swapping, pin swapping etc would be useful. Even adding components
>> (I regularly forget some blocking capacitors) would be fine. But I
>> understand that this has really low priority...
>
> I wrote up some notes about this:
>
> http://www.delorie.com/pcb/pin-mapping.html
>
> It's part of this:
>
> http://www.delorie.com/pcb/component-dbs.html

I had a look at this.  It would be nice.  However, I think it would be
difficult to come up with a system that could map abstract parts to
actual manufactured parts dependably enough to be useful, without a
lot of maintenance anyway.

What I do is have my setup for creating heavy symbols, and I grab
symbols from gschem and footprints from Luciani or make them with
Pcb_9.pm, then clone them around.  While I wouldn't inflict my
particular setup on the world, it does have the advantage of being
prototypal.  When I want a new part I proceed sideways from one of my
existing ones, there is no effort to abstract common elements of the
mappings between light and heavy symbols.

The thing is, any part library that we have the resources to imagine
implementing is going to be so sparse that its main value will be as a
set of examples for users to copy.  Adding a third layer with a
one-to-many mapping is going to make that process more difficult for
users, especially new ones.

When I started with gEDA dealing with the symbol/footprint marriage
problem was one of the big barriers: you have to figure out which
attributes matter, find tragesym, find Pcb_9, put your footprint dir
in gafrc,  get the command line for gsch2pcb right etc.  They are all
small steps but together they are enough to make people look elsewhere
than gEDA.

Britton