X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f
X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
From: Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk AT familieknaak DOT de>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Re: refdes renumber
Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:47:09 +0200
Lines: 85
Message-ID: <kov5jn$14k$1@ger.gmane.org>
References: <CACPio-6QgmXwj8LwYoR6zq1hfXHh8ymmnDNhrJd5oEVg6pt0Gg AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CACPio-7zTB0N7x8hGALcZzGgaCAexKr5DUb4imd=QAzH7Pj61A AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAG4ve9Jm00oyLb7uLgQjSTjfBpXOL9a0tXkjAQx09325ibChPg AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CACPio-7ucw-yxsykwOyV+p=+xUqKbwHLhQv1ODNS9Qd+gf3GPQ AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAG4ve9KAB6POcUvMhh3KsCt3eRyWus8L+V1WFyupgL-4QckRJA AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CACPio-7yV1a08b99NyjrGtD0b7qdKWxLPQxA0nUr3qAL9yz7pQ AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAG4ve9KKG_4Z6V0V3HCjAjo6jwD=t5AmwGdVgGqYJbM9q6B_zA AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CACPio-66SHLWYAusnwq0acYBL+QX0uwuuT8zeUotYE90a5pCHQ AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAG4ve9KeBYS_Gs_5y2o6ZWVREq0tEFtJiEQbX692SbRzTdSxgw AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAG4ve9+wP0VAnXAFpB+gJQHUphnNTYn71_wBphuMafL09k9YnQ AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <koto2c$r5i$1 AT ger DOT gmane DOT org> <CACPio-4m=CaiEpRe7wkn61sFVonM=aw-Q2j499__aA916hc2CA AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <82BD0858-A229-4675-A3BD-17C7A2056654 AT jump-ing DOT de>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
X-Complaints-To: usenet AT ger DOT gmane DOT org
X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: a89-182-130-170.net-htp.de
User-Agent: KNode/4.4.11
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

Markus Hitter wrote:

> People no longer care about non-
> blocking bugs, don't look at patches and those doing development
> usually keep the result in their own locker out of an totally
> unfounded fear to mess something up or, worse, don't even get the
> idea their work would be welcome.

Well, geda is not exactly known to happily accept contributions by 
people from outside an inner circle of core developers. Patches tend 
to not be applied, even if they were reported to fix the respective 
problem. Many bug reports, even ones with patches, stay without any 
response whatsoever.

New features get relegated to be "plugins" rather than integrated into 
the main application. That way, they tend to break silently when the 
main branch moves ahead. The plugins are not delivered as part of 
geda. They have to be downloaded and compiled individually by the user 
for every version of the application. This drastically decreases the 
already small user base. In addition, there is a strong psychological 
signal saying: "This is a closed shop. Please don't expect us to 
accept your contributions" 


> I see this especially with
> projects trying to do high quality work, not so much with chaotic
> development models used by Linux & Co.

I am not convinced that open source development is generally more 
chaotic than closed source. Just because you don't see less than 
optimal structures from the outside does not mean, everything is fine 
behind the veil of a binary blob. There are plausible reasons that 
even the opposite may be true. The very fact, that every code path is 
explicitely visible to the public provides a motivation for 
excellence.


> That general note said, please simply commit this renumber command.
> We have source code management, so things can't get worse. I say so
> without even investigating what would be wrong with the current
> renumber capabilities.

My most pressing wish with regard to renumber scripts:
	Play nice with multi part sympols. 

It is good practice to split power pins or function blocks of 
integrated components into separate symbols. Thy all share the same 
value of the refdes attribute. This sameness of refdes values lets 
gedalib know that two symbols are meant to refer to the same 
component. The same applies to slotted symbols.

The current renumber script in gschem ignores this. It assumes, that 
no refdes shall ever be dupplicated and alloates individual refdeses 
no matter what. Since I use symbols with split power pins in almost 
every schematic, this makes automatic renumber a lot less useful than 
it could be.

A simple low level way to improve the situation would be an option to 
just keep duplicate refdeses duplicate. E.g, two components with 
refdes=U5 would both end up with refdes U=13. Of course, this 
simplistic approach also leaves accidental dupliates intact. It still 
would be a major improvement for my kind of projects.

Some more elaborate logic might come handy to properly differntiate 
between deliberate and accidental duplicates. The symbol already 
"knows" about the number of slots. So the renumber script can check 
weather or not duplicates are consistant with slotting. This concept 
can be extended to split symbols:

Add attributes to the symbol that give hints on possible associated 
symbols. The symbl opamp.sym might contain an attribute that points to 
a symbol with the proper power pins. Like this:
  associated=opamp_pwr

Similarily, the symbol opamp_pwr.sym would contain an attribute:
  associated=opamp

In an ideal world, there would also be clues wheather or not an 
associated symbol is optional or should be enforced. Anyway, even the 
very simple option to not touch duplicates at all would improve my 
renumber experience a lot.

---<)kaimartin(>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak