Stefan Salewski wrote: > I hesitate to write this -- and I am still not sure if I should. Why? What part of honesty about a technical shortcoming is offensive?
> > Some people may think it is a good decision to upload all their stuff to > gedasymbols, including gschem.log, footprints just called button.fp > without any useful comments, or careless designed symbols. > > I think some of us including myself should be some more carefully and > ponder about the benefits before uploading. Some stuff may be useless, > some may be even harmful if designed careless with bugs. > Well, I've never uploaded anything because I've never considered any of my symbols or footprints "finished". Maybe if I ever build two boards with the same footprint without polishing it... :) Anyway, I'll also say that I was once burned by a footprint that I downloaded off the 'net without sufficient inspection, and so I've pretty much sworn off anything except for footprints I've done my little ol'self. I also make my own symbols just because over the decades I've developed ... um... "strong opinions" about how schematics should be drawn. OTOH, I don't think a whole bunch of process and rules and so forth are going to encourage what should be an open and democratic process. Perhaps some system where there are multiple repos, each with a particular set of design rules spelled out (like 10/10 footprints, 8/8 footprints, ANSI symbols, etc...) would be good, so that a contributor would have a checklist to run down before uploading. Automated rule checkers would be nice, but not necessary. Then what I'd really like to see is a Digg-like moderation system where anybody that used the symbol could give it a "It works for me" vote. That way, a user could filter on well-road-tested footprints, etc. Anyway... just a few random thoughts. For my part, I tend to build little footprint and symbol generator tools. Maybe instead of a repo of symbols, we should be leaning more along the lines of a repo of symbol and footprint generators, with some kind of conventionalized command line, and a well-known syntax for specifying design rules. So... "I need a TQFP 44, 0.8 lead pitch, 8 mil trace, 8 mill space, 10 mil silk, hand solder sized pads..." is something you feed to a generator instead of a search engine. -dave _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
