Hi Dick, 2012/3/18 Dick Hollenbeck <[email protected]>
> On 03/18/2012 11:19 AM, Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo wrote: > > We already have something quite useful, but testing is very welcome. > > I would be inclined to offer my help on the architectural changes needed > to make this > right, before I were to spend any of my time "testing". > > I will be glad to offer my help on those architectural changes, I could do it while I keep working on the scripting system. I'm finding it a very grateful work, because without very big efforts (thanks to swig) I'm being able to get very good results. > Finding that time is my biggest problem. Some of my thoughts: > I know what you mean, really ':) > > a) This is very important ground work. > Not as important as the refactoring you're working on :-) > > b) Eventually I hope to be able to help, and it will come in bits and > pieces. You will > see on my personal todo list in TODO.txt, that I have adding "loading > modules" to the > PLUGIN API near the top. This will happen very soon. See number 2) in > that file. > Nice!, that sounds great, really great. > > c) The architectural changes I identified before still need to happen > before we can call > this a completely sound design. I personally am not motivated to merely > get this done, > but am motivated to get it done correctly on top of the proper > architecture. I do not > feel that much if any of the work you have done is a waste of time. Quite > the contrary. > However, I am not surprised in the least that you have hit a an > architectural wall. It is > precisely the wall that I warned about. > Yes, after going down in the code I agree with you, let's clean up the house, and when it's done then we merge. During that time I could start writing some basic scripts to check all the object wrappings,, etc... , the tests, and (On a personal note, the wall that I am hitting lately is insufficient time > to spend on > KiCad. There are several items before this scripting in my work queue, > but I feel > scripting is probably one of the most important enhancements that will > ever happen to KiCad.) > I think it can be a very interesting one, things like the recently proposed pcb to schematic reverse engineering functionality could be very well done in scripting, so executed and maintained out of KiCad's sourcecode. > We will soon be moving to all new file formats in PCBNEW, both for > footprints and boards, > driven by the move to nanometer internal units. > One question, now the internal units (used in the objects as wxPoints are in 1/10 of mils or inch derived units, right?) I was quite surprised seeing that when I added 2000 to X it moved 2.54*2mm (if I'm not wrong) :-) I think that for easiness I'll define some unit converters like mm(x) or inches(x) that must map to our internal unit systems, that would also make the scripts I write now compatible with the nanometer upgrade. > At this time we have an opportunity to make very disruptive changes to the > PCBNEW file > format, an opportunity which does not come along often. The beauty of > having the > scripting inside the program, on top of the object model, is that your > work will be > largely preserved, even as the BOARD format changes, probably radically. > (An external > pure python library which tried to read *.brd files would be immediately > obsolete.) > > Yes, those changes are hard to make when a project is already rolling, having the KICAD_PLUGIN and IO_MGR the compatibility is easier to maintain, for the scripting must be totally transparent. > > I thank you for the progress report, and I honestly believe you are doing > *very* important > work, which will eventually get pulled into KiCad. You have my personal > guarantee. > > Thanks a lot Dick, I will keep working to make it as good as possible before merge. > > But just like the command line argument patch that came in 2 months ago, > there will be a > better time to merge this all in. After BOARD_ACTIONS, after > nano-meters, and after we > have a clean separation of UI from actions. Otherwise it would be like > re-modelling while > someone is cleaning the house. Yes, I have been saying this for nearly 5 > years, but I > honestly believe we are now very very close, relatively speaking. > Once I feel the scripting work is ready with the current version I will try to help on that. What's the idea of BOARD_ACTIONS? :) -- Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo http://www.nbee.es +34 636 52 25 69 skype: ajoajoajo
_______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
