The subject asks the question --- Is all EDA as bad as gEDA/pcb? EDA is difficult (especially simulation and PCB layout). If your friend had started with Eagle the question would be "Is all EDA as bad as Eagle?".
Back to the question --- the answer is NO. A lot of the EDA packages (in the <$10K range) are worse. Considering the cost of the software, the inflexibility of the interfaces and the cost of the time it takes to determine the incantations to be reasonably productive they are a lot worse. The user interface of gschem is quite good and getting better. It is a productive package. The user interface of PCB is a longer learning curve but is also improving. To be fair there are a *lot* more details and subtleties in performing PCB layout than in schematic capture. The two library methods are confusing. Every month a new user has a parsing error problem which is followed by a scripting tool debate. I like Dan's idea of generating footprints at install time. After a succesful install you have one library method. (* jcl *) -- http://www.luciani.org _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
