----- Original Message ----- > From: Dick Hollenbeck <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: > Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 2:26 AM > Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] Kicad Tool Framework > > On 08/11/2013 01:44 AM, Lorenzo Marcantonio wrote: >> On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 04:34:03PM -0500, Dick Hollenbeck wrote: >>> The push and shove router is something I could have used today. > Whatever confidence I >>> used to have in freerouter is gone. It is not working for me very well > on this current >>> board, and I am frustrated to no end with it and the lack of support > now. >> >> Strange... what has freerouter of bad other than is java-slowness and >> foggy display? > > > Under freerouter, I saved to a dsn file after 5 hours of push and shove > routing, > a > partially complete design, and went to lunch figuratively, shutdown > freerouter, > when I > came back to load back in the dsn file, it could not load its own file. This > is > the file > that *it* wrote to disk, presumably with the commitment that it could reload > it > later. My > mistake was in believing that. I could have concurrently saved to *.ses file > also, at > least that way my intermediate work progress could have come back through > pcbnew, then > back to freerouter. *.ses -> pcbnew -> *.dsn -> freerouter. > > For years I have had numerous conversations with Alfons, mostly always the > same > two questions: > > a) why he does not go open source? > > b) why do you not report line numbers when you puke loading a file? The > procedure has > been "send him the file in personal email, and he walks through the code > under a debugger > to find the problem". This is now rubbish since he has retired. So you > are stuck > guessing. This is guessing: load the *.dsn file into a text editor, cut > huge > portions > out, try reloading again, when it finally loads, add back in the content in > smaller > increments until you find the problem. Then doctor it, load it and proceed. > > > So when I wrote my posting about freerouter, I was at that point of losing 5 > hours of work. > > Fortunately in this case just this morning before church, I ran the > freerouter > written dsn > file through my s-expression beautifier, which you build under our > <kicad_src>/tools dir by > > > $ make property_tree > > Then tried beautifying Alfons' file: > > $ tools/property_tree a.dsn > /tmp/pray_hard.dsn > > I got lucky. /tmp/pray_hard.dsn loaded. (Remember, I was on my way to > church.) > > In my tech support thread on his forum, I finally asked what I hope is a > profoundly > important question to his many man years of excellent work. The question is: > "now that > you are retired, is it your intention to let freerouter simply fade into > retirement also? > Why not take pride in your retirement and let freerouter live on so you can > at > least take > a sense of pride in this extraordinary work?" >
Wow ... I always considered freerouter a serious liability since it was not open, but I was hoping it wouldn't become a problem so soon. It really would be a shame if Alfons simply lets it die; it's not only KiCAD people using it. As for push/shove - I see that as a basic and essential tool and the biggest bit missing from KiCAD - I can't wait for the work being done by the folks at CERN. - Cirilo _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
