On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 3:38 AM, John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com> wr= ote:

=
On Jan 8, 2016, at 6:41 AM, Peter Clifton (<= a href=3D"mailto:petercjclifton AT googlemail DOT com" target=3D"_blank">petercjcl= ifton AT googlemail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
On 8 Jan 2016 07:17, "DJ Delorie" <dj AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>
> The net result of this is that you can assi= gn a net named "nBL,A[8-2]" to
> a pin labelled "A[0-7]" and numbered "1-4,10-7" an= d they'll all get
> hooked up as appropriate.
Presumably this operates w= ith "normal" nets and pins, not gschem buses - which still (as fa= r as I recall) don't netlist.
> You can also have = a pin named "GND" and numbered "1,15,18" connected
> to net "GND" and it will connect all three pins to the one n= et.
> Constructive feedback welcome!
I think the solution you proposed looks useful and pragmatic.
One potential disadvantage of using this, (user choice of course), is= that until more work on applying new semantic rules is done in geda, schem= atics using this new attribute semantics will be less easily reused for oth= er work like simulation.
You can do this kind of thi= ng with a plug-in that wraps the appropriate gnetlist primitives. It=E2=80= =99s somewhat harder, but could apply to most back ends, not just pcb.
Regarding bus pins= & buses vs. Net pins and nets.... I start to wonder if we should aim t= o reduce that distinction in the future, and make all nets / pins / buses m= ore equally handled in gEDA. (Up to the netlist backend / resolver).
Yes. And then, erase the distinction between nets, busses,= pins, and lines. Move that into attributes: a line with netname=3D is a ne= t, a line with pinnumber=3D is a pin =E2=80=A6

Using attributes like this is effectively a form= of duck typing, which is fine in principle but often leads to a lot of con= fusion since the type hierarchy is implicit and doesn't end up getting = written down anywhere.=C2=A0 I'm not saying its always bad and gschem a= lready has this philosophy anyway, but it does tend to make the whole setup= challenging for newcomers as they struggle to figure out which sets of att= ributes they need.

I don'= ;t have a concrete idea what could be done about it.=C2=A0 It's been an= issue for every attribute-based system I've worked on and I've nev= er encountered a great solution. =C2=A0

=C2=A0

Britton