I decided to give gEDA a go as my design tool for a project (I've previously used PCAD and ORCAD), but now that I'm about to put pen to paper I'm questioning whether using gEDA is a good long term solution. I'm an electronic engineer and currently contract out my skills, so the solution needs to satisfy my commercial needs.
The most important thing to me is how long it will take me to learn gEDA, and whether learning it is a good choice in the long term. One of my worries is that at some point I'll need functions and interoperability that gEDA can't provide, and then I'll have to move to a commercial tool. My other concern is interacting with other professionals. I prefer to only do the schematic capture, and then pass the PCB layout onto someone else (as it is time consuming, and there are more productive things for me to do). I'm concerned that gEDA may make this process more difficult. Reading comments like, "This document and gnetlist in general are pretty ALPHA, so keep that in mind as you use it to generate netlists." (http://www.geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:gnetlist_ug) don't help to ease ones mind when making an important design decision. So what do you think? If you were in a situation of choosing a design flow solution that you plan to use for a couple of years, what would you choose? (on a separate note, if you are experienced with pcb, and interested in doing layout, let me know what your hourly rate is). Regards, Duncan _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
