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        Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:05:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Ben Gamari <bgamari DOT foss AT gmail DOT com>
To: John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com>, geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] geda-skeleton-project: Lowering the cost of a starting a gEDA project
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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:05:15 -0500
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John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com> writes:

> On Jan 16, 2013, at 8:31 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
>
>> New gEDA users want the easiest/fastest path that results in them
>> getting their project done.
>
> Yes, exactly. What if pcb isn't the right tool for that? In my
> opinion, based on experience, it probably isn't in many cases.
>
I've been sitting out thusfar but I feel I should note that I disagree
with your assessment of pcb. In my experience, pcb, after an initial
learning period, is an extremely productive environment for my needs. Of
the projects in this space that I have experience with (admittedly quite
few: Kicad, Eagle, and pcb), pcb has by far been the best tool for the
job (especially among FOSS offerings). That's not to say that it is
without issues but I have yet to find a design for which it proves to
be inadequate.

I understand that others may have a different view on this, but I
think it's fair to say that there exists a number of people who happily
use pcb as their layout tool of choice. Where the majority stands on
this issue I do not know.

>>  If the first thing we tell them is to find some other software
>> package to get their job done, we are doing ourselves a huge
>> disservice.
>
> If the first impression that they get is that they must use something
> that they are likely to find unusable, we do both them and ourselves a
> huge disservice.
>
> If we downplay gEDA's unique strengths, particularly its ability to
> export designs to most common layout and simulation systems, we do
> both them and ourselves a huge disservice.
>
I didn't mention the fact that gEDA can target multiple downstream tools
as I wanted to present a simple interface, which appears to be what
my audience expects. That being said, I can add a bit to the README
mentioning the existence of other tools this would help.

Out of curiosity, what is your preferred layout tool?

Cheers,

- Ben