X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:53:34 +0100 (CET) X-X-Sender: igor2 AT igor2priv To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Debug: to=geda-user AT delorie DOT com from="gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu" From: gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu Subject: Re: [geda-user] new snapshots? In-Reply-To: <50A8AFD3.6090800@unige.ch> Message-ID: References: <50A688B8 DOT 4090809 AT neurotica DOT com> <50A8AFD3 DOT 6090800 AT unige DOT ch> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (DEB 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Sun, 18 Nov 2012, Juergen Harms wrote: > On 11/16/2012 08:39 PM, Gareth Edwards wrote: >> On 16 November 2012 18:40, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> Are there any plans for a new snapshot or "unstable" release of either >>> anytime soon? >>> >> >> We're actively working towards gaf stable-1.8 again. I'm not presuming >> a timescale but I don't think it will be long. >> > > Excellent news - and probably in time for making it into the new release of > Mageia (Mageia 3) > >> To me, gschem is a power tool with few problems, while pcb is unusable >> > > I agree with the first part - isn't the second part a minority opinion (looks > like a quite small minority)? > Among pcb users it is, for sure. Of course we don't know how many users turn pcb down and never express their opinion. I am a pcb user for many years. I see the limitation of the infrastructure about special handling copper and non-copper layers, holes, footprints, and I do realize that there is a collection of special cases that make pcb work. I also see how some seemingly innocent features are hard to implement with the current infrastructure, partly due to that design. However... I don't think this is the reason, or even on the list of possible reasons new users may turn down pcb. I've used gschem+pcb on small group university courses for multiple semesters and many students didn't really like the tools, but none ever named such design decisions or infrastructural limitation as reason. Pcb is not unusable - even if it depends on many special cases, it very often covers the need. It works very fine for me, and I choose it over other packages because it is closest to UNIX philosophy with totally separate schematics, pcb layout and other tools that I can drive easily from makefiles and store all the design files in svn and process them with scripts (power of text formats). There are some parts I would leave out, which are trying to fulfill very different requirements (i.e. dbus, 3d rendering, spread-sheet-like editing of things, import schematics in pcb). As long as one can disable them or avoid using them, I see no major problem. And even when it is not, one can keep using an old version or maintain a fork. Regards, Tibor