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From: karl AT aspodata DOT se
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] identical symbol names
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Comments: In-reply-to Ouabache Designworks <z3qmtr45 AT gmail DOT com>
   message dated "Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:12:07 -0700."
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Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:42:26 +0100 (CET)
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John Eaton:
...
> A lot of designers do make copies of things all the time. A lot of
> commercial projects run into problems.  Some designers have traced the root
> cause of these problems back to somebody using the wrong copy of something.
> That is why we want you to stop making copies, you are making our jobs
> harder.
>
> Everybody MUST keep their components in a repository. We call that "keeping
> a backup". It does not have to be on the internet and visible to the world.
> My personal backups are a monthly dump to dvd and stored it in the barn in
> case the house burns down. If you work for a company then you may  work on
> a local copy of your files on your workstation but the "official" copy will
> be kept by the company in their repositories. You will make frequent (ie:
> weekly or even daily) check ins so that your latest work is always stored
> in a repository. That's how the pros do it.

I don't have that much hard experience to rely on, but I'm kind of fed 
up on all copies of the same thing. I can also understand Алексей
Харьковский's urge to solve the things at hand, but I think we should go
"no more copies" route and start trying out different approaches to 
integrate repositories in gschem sym file handling.

> Updating components do not break old designs. Once a component is released
> and used in production then you cannot make any material changes to that
> component.

That would require some best practicies rules and perhaps a program that 
tests that thoose rules are not violated. It would be very nice if we 
had some graphical regression tool. I know that lilypond.org are using 
such things to verify that changes doesn't break the graphical output.
I can perhaps dig that up when time comes.

> You can however create a new revision of that component and
> release that one with a different version number. When a user does an
> update then they will see that there are new versions and can decide to
> stay with the old or replace it with the new.

That's another thing that should be handled.

...
> Besides versions there is a concept called variants. In IC design you want
> to create components that are flexible so the end user can customize them
> to their exact needs. We do this using parameters. But parameters do not
> work in two cases, they cannot modify a port list or a file list. These
> require variants.
> 
> If you have a cpu with the option of having a debugger interface then you
> cannot select this with a parameter. The debugger will have io ports that
> don't exist on a non-debugged cpu. So you will release two variants, one
> with debugger ports and one without.

So to92 transistors pin djungle are different variants, and so are
different packages of the same mcu ?

For a chip, you can pick a subset of pins, e.g. power pins, and make
a separate symbol for that. That's not a variant, but what would that
be called, a "selection"?

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

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