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Subject: Re: gEDA and it's future with Scheme & Guile was Re: [geda-user]
 Project leadership
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From: John Griessen <john AT ecosensory DOT com>
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Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2015 09:45:33 -0600
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On 12/30/2015 03:35 AM, Richard Hughes (hughsient AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
> So, you're looking for the 0.01% of people crazy enough to do PCB
> design, of which 0.1% of which will know the difference between free
> software and shareware, of which 0.1% also knows a pretty esoteric
> language

Even though scheme is naturally good for big lists of data, other high level languages like python are also,
and the popularity guesses above are probably not more than 10X off.

Even just 1% * 1% * 1% is 1 in a million people,
so it really does limit contributions.

If there are several more lurkers like Richard Hughes that I cannot recall seeing post here before,
maybe the fastest way forward is a base up rewrite in python, starting with Roland's xorn,
with as little C as possible for performance reasons only,
8and with existing code maintained for a good while so comparison testing can be done.
PCB is a repository of tons of layout knowledge -- you would keep it around and use in parallel
for a couple of years to be sure you had all features implemented, none forgotten. gschem is not as many little rules,
so it might transition sooner than 2 years.  With python and a plugin system of code, from a bottom-up and
top-down design and rewrite, I might even contribute.  It seems like quicksand as is, so I cannot afford the time to.